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ARMED AND EQUIPPED, AS ADVISED BY FRIENDS. 



A JOURNEY 



OF A JAYHAWKER 



BY 

W. Y. MORGAN 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
ALBERT T. RE ID 



MONOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

CRANE & COMPANY, PRINTERS 

TOPEKA 

I90S 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 

FEB 5 1906 

Copyright Entry 

^Uv.X<f t & OS 
CLASS #// XX6. No. 

/ 3 *> 3 SI 

COPY B. 



Copyright 1905, 
By W. Y. MORGAN. 



PKEFAOE. 



These letters were written to the Hutchinson Daily 
News, and are printed in book form without revision. 
With this understanding the reader will kindly over- 
look inconsistencies and inaccuracies, which easily 
creep into what is only an impression and not a study. 
Any other mistakes are to be charged to the printer 
and proof-reader, who are likewise to be credited for 
the correct grammar and English which may be found 
in some places. 

There is no excuse for the publication of these let- 
ters. No one is guilty except the writer, and he is 
responsible only to his conscience, which is not sensi- 
tive. *i 

W. Y. MORGAN. 

Hutchinson, Kansas, December 1, 1905. 



To the 

PEOPLE OF HUTCHINSON, 

Who have stood for much from the same 

source, and for whom there is no 

relief in sight, this hook is 

respectfully dedicated. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Going to Europe, 11 

Leaving the Land, 17 

Crossing the Atlantic, 24 

First Day in Ireland, 31 

By Killarney's Lakes, 37 

Ireland and the Irish, 44 

The City of Pleasure, 53 

Paris and Parisians, 60 

Rural France, 69 

Getting into Italy, 79 

Rome and Romans, 86 

Venice, the Beautiful, 93 

Some Things on Art, 100 

An Italian Fourth and So Forth, 106 

Across the Alps, 117 

Geneva and Chillon, 123 

Something of Switzerland, 130 

Swiss and Switzerland, 136 

In the Black Forest, 145 

Stories of Strassburg, 152 

In Old Heidelberg, 159 



x CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Worms and Other Things, 167 

Rich Old Frankfort, 174 

Down the Rhine, 180 

Cologne Water and Others, 188 

In Dutch Land, 197 

The Dam Dutch Towns, . . > 204 

The Kingdom of Belgium, 212 

European Art and Grub, 219 

In Old, Old England, 231 

The Greatest of Cities, 238 

At King Edward's House, 246 

The Tower and Other Things, 253 

In Rural England, 259 

Railroads in Europe, 266 

The Time to Quit, 275 



A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 



GOING TO EUROPE. 

Boston, May 25, 1905. 
When one decides to make a European trip he im- 
mediately becomes impressed with the importance of 
his intention, and thinks that everyone else is like- 
wise affected. Of course this is a mistake, but you 
have to stop and think before you realize it. You go 
down the street imagining everyone is saying, "There 
is a man who is going to Europe." In fact, the other 
fellow is probably merely wondering whether or not 
you will pay the two dollars you owe him or stand him 
off for another thirty days. You are in an exhilarated 
state. You think over the cherished desires of a life- 
time to see London, Paris, Rome, and the places made 
famous by history. You can't pick up a paper but 
you read some reference to a place or thing which you 
are going to see across the Atlantic, and which ordina- 
rily you would skip as you do a patent-medicine ad- 
vertisement. You go to reading the accounts of 
Emperor William's plans as if you would soon meet 
William and talk them over with him. You read about 
the comings and goings of nobility and wonder if the 

(ii) 



12 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 



pope knows you are likely to call on him some day in 
July, and whether the Swiss Guards will realize the 
honor of a visit from an American citizen by the name 
of Morgan or Jones. You read of European travel 
and sights, and, worst of all, you actually get to be- 
lieve the things. In fact, you work yourself up to a 
fine point of enthusiasm and in your mind go cavorting 
around among ancient heroes and crowned heads. 
As a first guess I would say that probably the most 
successful part of a trip to the Old World is the one 
you take in advance. 

*** 

As soon as I disclosed my European intentions, I 
began to get advice from friends and old travelers. 
This is a trying experience. Everybody has ideas as 
to what should be done, and no two will agree. One 
of the first questions to be settled is that of clothing. 
The importance of this is impressed upon the prospec- 
tive tourist. In the first place I am told to take no 
baggage except the very simplest that can be carried 
in the hand. In the second place I am advised that 
when traveling in Europe, even more than in this 
country, one should be prepared for all kinds of climate 
and be ready with the proper clothes to meet every 
emergency. Every bit of information is absolutely as 
true as common law or the gospel, for the informant 
has either made the trip, or his wife's cousin has, or he 
knows a man who knows another man who did, — and 
you are told what happened with all the harrowing 
details. Clothes do not make the man or the woman, 
but they help out a lot. So that our friends will real- 



GOING TO EUROPE. 13 

ize the difficulties we may meet. I will admit that 
we are going to the "simple" extreme, taking only 
light baggage, very little more than a clean collar and 
a pleasant smile. If royalty wants to call upon us, 
royalty will not find us prepared with the clothes re- 
quired by the books of etiquette, unless I can hire a 
dress suit or borrow one from the head waiter. 

I have also discovered that it is going to be difficult 
to please everybody with our route. Nearly every 
person has something that just must be seen, and not 
to do so would make a trip to Europe a flat failure. 
Most of these important places are dug up by inspi- 
ration from the memory of some novel or play. There 
is the scientific man who urges German universities, 
the musically inclined who would make Wagnerian 
objects the great points, the historical student who 
prescribes battlefields, the sportive gent who urges 
Monte Carlo, the classical enthusiast who can think of 
nothing less than a thousand years old, the art-lover 
who has a list of seventy-seven different styles of 
Madonnas, the novel-reader who would wander over 
the country of Scott, the social oracle who would spend 
the time in London and "Paree," the enthusiast in 
civics who is interested in government railroads, the 
initiative and referendum of Switzerland, and the man 
whose ideas of a trip abroad are condensed in the part- 
ing injunction, " Take one for me at Munich or Heidel- 
berg." It is shocking to see the disappointed look 
of the friendly adviser if you do not agree with him 
that his recommendation is the great thing in Europe. 



14 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

A friend of mine who is an archaeologist said: "Of 
course you are going to Greece?" Now I had not 
thought of Greece, and ventured to say so. "What, 
not going to Greece!" was the withering answer in a 
tone which plainly meant that you were undoubtedly 
going to throw your opportunity away like an empty 
sack when the peanuts are gone. Another type of 
adviser is the man who says : " You must see the Col- 
iseum," when you know the man would not know the 
Coliseum if he were to meet it in the road. He has 
simply heard some one say something about the Col- 
iseum, and takes that word in order to show off his 
superior knowledge of the sights of Europe. During 
the weeks of preparation we have made "itineraries" 
to suit the suggestions of our friends. It is easy to 
make an itinerary, and no trouble at all to change it 
the next day when a more profitable route is offered. 
On a rough estimate I should say that in the last few 
weeks we have made European itineraries enough to 
take about seventeen years' time, and we are intend- 
ing to be away only about three months. The fact 
is that while Europe is only a little continent, not near 
as big as the United States, it has been fought over, 
scrapped over, built over, written about and has been 
doing business for so many hundreds of years that there 
is hardly a pin-point on the map which for some good 
reason you do not want to visit. It is like taking a 
newspaper article about seven columns long and con- 
densing it to a small paragraph. You feel you are 
cutting out all the really good places, and about the 
extent of your trip is to the points to which you have 



GOING TO EUROPE. 15 



ordered your mail sent and where you have to go to 

change trains. 

¥¥¥ 

And then there is the friend who can't go to Europe 
and who could hardly get to Newton if he had to pay 
for a round-trip ticket, who comfortingly says: "I 
wouldn't go to Europe until I had seen all of my own 
country." This remark has been made to me so often 
in the last few weeks that I have learned to dodge 
when I see it coming. I have traveled around some 
in the United States, and as a matter of fact the people 
in one section are pretty much the same as the people 
in another, and it is people that I like to see and not 
mountains or museums. Of course some parts are 
more so than others. There is no State like Kansas 
and no people like Kansans. The object of a trip to 
Europe is to see something different, as different as 
possible. It is to get the local "color" for the things 
you read about. It is to learn if the men and women 
of the Old World are as they are pictured in books, 
and to compare them with the people whom you as- 
sociate with every day at home. I am told that in 
Paris even little children can talk French, and that 
in Germany the people stand it to have an emperor 
and never organize any boss-buster movements or bolt 
the party nominations. I have read about these 
things all my life, and they may be true. I want to 
see them. I am not from Missouri, but I have lived 
near enough to want to be shown. 



16 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

We sailed from Hutchinson on the Santa Fe. After 
touching at a few places we reached Boston safely, and 
unless the police intervene we will embark this after- 
noon on the White Star steamship Arabic. It is still 
two hours until we go aboard but I am already seasick, 
or am imagining how it will feel, which is nearly as bad. 
I am not afraid of water. I have lived too long on the 
Arkansas and Cow creek and my boyhood was spent on 
the shores of the Cottonwood. But nevertheless and 
notwithstanding, I feel as I think everybody must 
when he takes his first long ocean voyage. I never 
noticed so many accounts of wrecks as I have in the 
last month. If there was an item in a newspaper 
about the wreck of some ocean steamer or the drowning 
of a passenger, and I did not see the piece, some friend 
always did, and brought it to me to comfort me. Sta- 
tistics prove that it is as safe to travel across the ocean 
in a steamship as across Kansas in a railroad train. 
This is comforting, but statistics do not look big and 
substantial when you contemplate a week's existence 
with nothing but a few boards and bolts between 
yourself and the place where McGinty went. One 
little man in a little old boat seems mighty small in 
the middle of a big ocean. 



LEAVING THE LAND. 

Steamship Arabic, May 29, 1905. 
In spite of the fact that a trip across the Atlantic 
is not considered dangerous or exceptional, there is 
alwa}'S a lot of sentiment which comes up into the 
throat of the traveler when he goes aboard the ship 
that is to take him out of his own country and across 
the ocean to a foreign land. Long before the Arabic 
was to sail it was filled with passengers and friends 
who had come to say good-by and wave farewell. The 
custom is whenever a friend is to start on such a trip 
to accompany him or her to the dock, send flowers to 
be placed in the stateroom, and to stand on the wharf 
and wave a handkerchief until the responding figure 
on the deck of the ship is no longer recognizable in the 
distance. Of course, we were so far from home that 
there was nobody to do these honors for wandering 
Kansans, so we picked out a few nice-looking people 
who seemed to be there for curiosity and vigorously 
shouted and waved good-by to them, and they had 
the good taste to respond. A Colorado man who had 
been on the trip before told me afterward that the 
young fellow who had called so cheerily and waved 
so vigorously at him as the steamer pulled away from 
land, was a hotel porter whom he had hired for a half- 
dollar to come to the wharf and bid him godspeed on 
his journey. 

-2 (17) 



18 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

The Arabic turned away from the dock at 4.30 in the 
afternoon of May 25, and steamed slowly and ma- 
jestically down the harbor and out toward the ocean 
with a half-dozen little pilot-boats and revenue cutters 
whistling and dancing like a lot of little dogs frisking 
and playing around a big dog as it walks down the 
street. The old ship Constitution, heroine of America's 
early naval warfare, was passed, the forts and the navy 
yard with the modern warships and guns, the last is- 
land and the last American flag faded into the distance, 
and a solemn thought of leaving one's native land and 
of possible seasickness makes one choke with patriot- 
ism and foreboding. It is too late now to back out. 
There is no chance to get off. For a week the ship will 
never stop, and there will be no place upon which the 
eye can rest except water and sky. A flood of senti- 
ment rushes through one and leaks a little at the eyes 
as the mind turns to those who have been so near and 
dear and are now to be so far away. That is the feeling 
experienced by all travelers, and I want to be recorded 
present and voting on the question, although as a 
matter of fact while the Arabic was leaving the dock 
and country I was quarreling with the purser over the 
stateroom and trying to get the steward to help me 
handle baggage when he was so full of American liquor 
that he could do nothing but say "yessir" (hie) and 
smile. 

No doubt everyone has noticed how the apparently 
little things of life occupy us at most critical and im- 
portant times. I remember when at a certain stage 
I was accomplishing an object to which I had worked 




NO TIME FOR SENTIMENT. 



LEAVING THE LAND. 19 

industriously and whole-heartedly. I should have been 
filled with happiness and pride as I faced a large crowd 
of people. As a matter of fact I was miserable be- 
cause my collar did not fit my shirt and kept bobbing 
up and down in a refractory way. The first time I saw 
Niagara Falls, whither I had gone to be overcome with 
the grandeur and beauty of the scene, I put in all my 
time trying to find a place to get a sandwich. It is 
said that when Gladstone was making his great fight 
for Irish home rule he was sitting on his bench in 
parliament, apparently wrapped in deep thought. His 
colleagues did not disturb him, for they supposed he 
was pondering the question which was agitating every 
mind. Finally he straightened himself up and said 
to himself, but so those near could hear: "After all, 
I will plant that rosebush in the front instead of at 
the side of the doorway." The energetic man who 
is traveling amid picturesque and historical places puts 
in more time figuring out time-tables and wondering 
whether he will get dinner in a dining-car or at a lunch 
station, than he does in soulful meditation on the won- 
ders of nature or the handiwork of man. And the 
general run of women, I am firmly convinced by cir- 
cumstantial evidence, will approach the subject of a 
European trip or a church wedding, not with the 
thoughts of the lands to be visited or the responsi- 
bility to be assumed, but with minds full of the prob- 
lem of whether four shirtwaists and a skirt will do better 
than two dresses. This peculiarity of humanity has 
often impressed me, so I was not ^surprised when I 
realized as I returned more or less triumphant from 



20 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

my battles with purser and steward that I missed 
most of the thrills and throbs that had been promised 
me by all the guidebooks and books of travel that I 
had read. 

An ocean voyage is being robbed of most of its ter- 
rors. The Arabic is a big ship, one of the largest. 
It stretches out over so many waves that it does very 
little rolling or plunging. We have been out for three 
days and there have been really no cases of seasickness. 
I fully expected to be seasick, and it is a great disap- 
pointment. However, I am not going to ask the com- 
pany to refund my fare on that account. Everybody 
is afraid of seasickness, and down in his heart every- 
body wishes that everybody else might be sick and he 
alone left to proudly walk the deck and smile at the 
victims. The only person who suffers from seasick- 
ness is the individual affected. You may run a sliver 
in your finger and the family will gather around with 
words of sympathy. You may get a cinder in your 
eye and your friends will hurry forward to help get 
it out. But if you are suffering with seasickness, and 
death would almost be welcome, your friends will only 
grin and their words of condolence are false and mock- 
ing. 

A modern steamship is constructed for safety, com- 
fort, and almost luxury. When you get those three 
qualities there is very little left of the poetry or novelty 
of ocean traveling. We still speak of the ship "sail- 
ing," although, of course, it doesn't. The modern 
ship steams. We have read all of our lives about the 



LEAVING THE LAND. 21 

beautiful white- wings and the jolly jack tars. The 
reality is a mammoth engine out of sight, a big smoke- 
stack, and a lot of black, dust-covered, sweaty firemen. 
The "sailors" no longer climb the rigging and the 
masts, but go down in the hole and shovel coal. My 
ideas of the sea came from Oliver Optic. I want to 
hear the boatswain pipe, the mate's command, "All 
hands belay ship," and see the captain as he stands 
at his post and with an occasional "Steady, my heart- 
ies/' direct the seamen as they sing their songs and 
clamber up the masts. That is beauty and poetry. 
But the reality is that the captain whistles down the 
tube to the engineer and he gives the order, "More 
coal, you sons of guns; stop that noise and fire up." 
That is fact, and makes traveling comfortable but not 
soul-inspiring. 

¥¥? 

The White Star line, on which we are traveling, be- 
longs to the big steamship company merger, formed by 
P^erpont Morgan a few years ago. It is really owned by 
American capital and controlled by American financiers, 
but the ships carry the British flag and are manned by 
British officers and men. England manages things 
so that it pays to carry the English flag. I have a 
great deal of respect for England. With all our Amer- 
ican enterprise, energy and ability, we look like a 
tallow candle beside an electric light when it comes to 
ships and international commerce. The government 
of England always looks after its shipping interests 
and encourages capital to send English vessels and Eng- 
lish crews carrying English merchandise to the fur- 



22 A JOURNEY OF A J AY HAWKER. 

thermost parts. Prizes, bounties, subsidies and fa- 
vors of all kinds have been used to make the merchant 
marine of Great Britain greater than that of the rest 
of the world. The English are a great people, and they 
are conscious of it. And they see to it that everybody 
else understands the fact. There isn't anything in this 
American-owned ship that comes from the United 
States except what the passengers have in their bag- 
gage. The crew from captain to cook are English. 
The supplies are all bought in England. The ships 
are built and repaired at Belfast. Coal for the voyage 
both ways comes from Wales. English meats and 
even ice-cream are purchased in Liverpool for the round 
trip. You can't buy an American postage stamp, and 
United States money is not taken except at exchange 
below par. The American who has been going through 
life under the impression that America is the whole 
thing has his feelings stepped on nearly every time he 

turns around. 

*** 

The daily life on a steamship is a good deal like I am 
told it is on a limited Santa Fe Pullman train, only 
there is a little more room. There are all kinds of 
people on the Arabic, mostly from England, the United 
States or Boston. Soon after we left port I met a 
fellow who looked like somebody from home. I asked 
him where he was from, and he said Nevada. I said 
I was from Kansas, and he enthusiastically grasped 
my hand and said, "Then we are neighbors." You 
do get a good deal of that feeling. Afterward we met 
some folks from Colorado, and to see us warm up to 



LEAVING THE LAND. 23 

each other would have made you think we were a 
long separated but happily reunited family. When 
anyone asks me where I hail from and I say "Kansas/' 
the answer is nearly always "Oh." And then I shut 
my eyes and wait for the next remark. It never fails 
to come: "Do you know Carrie Nation?" If I get 
a fair show I generally manage in the course of con- 
versation to incidentally ring in a few things about 
Kansas that they never heard before (and once in a 
long while something I never heard before myself). 
I don't have to confine myself to things I can prove. 
Colorado and Nevada will stand by me. and if the re- 
turning English tourists are not regretting they did 
not see the wonderful State of Kansas they are simply 
figuring me out a liar. The poet said : " How sweet 
it is for one's country to die." Let us add: "How 
sweet it is for one's country to lie." 

That reminds me of a good joke on myself. An 
Englishman was complaining of the voyage and wish- 
ing he was in old. England. I did a little rapture talk 
about the ocean, and said I loved to go on the deck, 
watching the never-ending blue of water and sky and 
just lie and lie and lie there. He said : " I believe you 
told me you were a newspaper man." 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. 

Steamship Arabic, June 1, 1905. 
I have come to a realization of the work of Chris- 
topher Columbus. It took nerve to keep on sailing 
day in and day out, week in and week out, with no 
sight of anything that looked like land, — nothing but 
a great stretch of water, not even a stick in it. If I 
had been on board the Santa Maria I would surely 
have joined the crowd of sailors who wanted to quit 
and go home. We have come now nearly 3,000 miles 
through the Atlantic, and if someone had not been 
over the route before and we did not believe that land 
would appear at a certain time it would certainly 
look as if the ocean would never end. If Columbus 
were to make the trip now on the Arabic he would 
probably be as surprised as were the Indians when the 
Spaniards landed on San Salvador something over 400 
years ago. The monotony of the ocean is only broken 
by an occasional passing ship, and a high-strung im- 
agination. We have met or passed five ships in seven 
days. Each one has provided us with excitement for 
half a day. We took sides as to whether the strange 
vessel was a Cunarder, an American liner, a North 
German Lloyd or what not. Every line that crosses 
the ocean would have partisans and each corner of the 
argument would be vigorously sustained by expert 
evidence. I decided on a system. I always main- 

(24) 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. 25 

tained that the ship was an American liner. By 
sticking to the text and not changing I hit it once, which 
was better than the average. Then we have long and 
sometimes bitter discussions as to the number of miles 
the Arabic will make in the next twenty-four hours. 
Tips are anxiously obtained from officers, sailors, stew- 
ards and cooks. Every man who ever bet in his life 
and some who never do at home, back their opinions 
with their money. And when we are not arguing or 
betting we are eating. Passengers on this line are 
full-fed. The day begins with 8 o'clock breakfast, 
at 10 : 30 a lunch is served, on deck, at 1 o'clock an 
elaborate lunch, at 4 o'clock tea, cakes and sandwiches 
are distributed, and at 7 o'clock a course dinner. Peo- 
ple do all of these and eat sandwiches and stuff between 
times and then wonder why their stomachs are "dis- 
turbed." 

It takes all kinds of people to make up the world, 
and there are samples of most of the varieties on an 
ocean steamer. Some of our passengers are very swell 
and some are very bum. But they meet on the level — 
provided you can call the deck of a ship level when it 
is usually tilted one way or the other at an angle of 
20 to 30 degrees. In the spirit of investigation I lis- 
tened to the talk of a couple of ladies who are society 
leaders and members of the 400 at home. The sub- 
jects they discussed were babies, servants and clothes, 
and they talked just about like the women-folks of 
Kansas. There is a touch of human nature through 
all of us. 



26 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 



When I left home I decided not to change my watch 
until I got to Europe. At Boston I was only one hour 
behind and could easily remember and count on that. 
But every day on the ocean the clock has been shoved 
up thirty-five minutes for the 400 miles traveled east- 
ward the preceding twenty-four hours. When it got 
so we were eating noonday lunch at 8 a. m. by my 
watch I gave it up and turned the hands around. When 
we reach London we will be about six hours ahead of 
Hutchinson time, and anyone can see the ridiculous 
side of getting up at 2 o'clock in the morning and going 
to bed at 4 in the afternoon. By a strange coincidence 
the sun has changed its time for rising and setting to 
agree with the ship's clock. 

There is great system on a big ship. Everything is 
done just so and no other way. I have had a hard 
time locating the "stewards." I never realized what 
a steward was before. We have a bedroom steward, 
who looks after the stateroom, a bath steward who 
runs the bath-room, a deck steward in charge of the 
deck, an assistant deck steward, a library steward, a 
smoking-room steward, a table steward, and a few 
more whose titles I can't remember. One steward 
never gets on another's line of duty. If you want a 
deck chair you must see the deck steward, if you want 
a blanket you must see the saloon steward, and so on. 
If I fall overboard I hope the proper steward will be 
around, for the system is so fine that I fear the other 
stewards would refuse to act until the proper steward 
could be called. Each steward will be expecting a 



CROSSING THE ATLANTIC. 27 

tip when the voyage is ended, and if he weren't a " stew- 
ard," he probably could not get it so easily. 

¥¥¥ 
Sunday we had religious service in the saloon. (Not 
the kind of a saloon that Mrs. Nation holds service in.) 
It was the Church of England service, but out of re- 
spect to the American passengers the reader ran in 
President Roosevelt's name in the prayer for the royal 
family. It was a quiet, beautiful day and the amount 
of the collection was small. I was told by an officer 
that when Sunday is a stormy day and the boat acts 
as if it might tip over most any time, the passengers 
contribute much more liberally to the offering than 
they do when the day is fair. Some people go to 
church on board ship who never see the inside of a 
church on land. I suppose they learn from the sailors 
the advantage of casting an anchor out to the wind- 
ward. 

¥¥¥ 

We will see land in a few hours, the southwest coast 
of Ireland. A few hours later we will land at Queens- 
town. It will be mighty good to get one's feet on 
ground that doesn't move just when you don't expect 
it to. We will find out what has happened in the 
world, for we haven't had any news for a week. They 
are betting on whether or not the Jap and Russian 
fleets have met during our absence from the earth. 
Like a great many good things, the best part of an 
ocean voyage is the end. I have enjoyed the trip 
very much, but if I get a chance to walk back to Amer- 
ica I will be mighty glad to take it. 



IRELAND. 



FIRST DAY IN IRELAND. 

Cork, Ireland, June 3. 
The first vivid impression made upon me in Ireland 
was the morning after we landed. We had come ashore 
late at night at Queenstown, and except for the Irish 
names and Irish brogue there was nothing to indi- 
cate but that we were going through an American 
custom-house into an American hotel. But when we 
went to breakfast up came the waiter attired in full 
dress and extra long-tailed coat with a red vest. I had 
always supposed the pictures of an English or Irish 
waiter in such livery at breakfast was a joke. It is 
not a joke. It is a most serious and proper attire, and 
I suppose an Irish waiter in a first-class hotel would 
as soon appear to serve breakfast without any pants 
as without the long swallowtail coat. And when I saw 
that, I knew I was far away from home. 

A European breakfast is "rolls and coffee." In an- 
ticipation I had thought of hot f rolls and delicious 
coffee. Put this down: There are no hot rolls in Ire- 
land, and I am guessing there will be none in Europe. 
"Rolls" means plain, very plain, cold bread, hard and 
a trifle stale. The coffee is bum and the cream is 
skim-milk. An English hotel, for that is what Irish 
first-class hotels are, ought to put more into the eating 

(31) 



32 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

and less into the waiter's uniform. Along with other 
Americans at that first breakfast, we joined in a howl 
and managed to get some eggs. 

Queenstown is one of the largest and best of the 
British harbors. It has an important navy yard and 
several English warships are anchored among the num- 
erous merchant vessels. The town is on the side of a 
high hill which comes down to the water's edge, and 
the narrow streets go up and down the slope at every 
angle except a right angle to the street along the water- 
front. The chief resources of Queenstown are sailors 
and tourists, and the main occupations of the leading 
inhabitants are lodging-houses and saloons. Over 
nearly every store is the sign, "Licensed to sell ale, 
porter and spirits seven days in the week." 

There is nothing much to Queenstown except the 
quaintness that comes from age and dirt, and I have 
seen enough American towns with the same character- 
istics to make this an old story. But we walked and 
climbed to the top of the hill, and there I saw a pan- 
orama spread out before me which will stick to my 
memory a good long while. The large harbor, locked 
on three sides and part of the fourth with land, made 
a blue setting for the white of the numerous ships. 
Little sail-boats drifted over the quiet water and tugs 
and launches darted in and out among the big vessels. 
Eight-oared boats from the warships, manned with uni- 
formed sailors from the royal navy, skimmed back and 




THE IRISH JAUNTING (JOLTING) CAR. 



FIRST DAY IN IRELAND. 33 

forth, the eight oars rising and falling as one. Flags 
were flying from mastheads, and the decks were lively 
with the work of the day. Up from the shore on every 
side except where the ocean's blue appeared, rose the 
greenest green hills you ever saw, and they reached to 
the bluest blue sky you ever saw, a frame for the pic- 
ture which no artist could ever hope to portray. 

An Irish woman whose son had gone to America 
and sent back for the mother and little sister, had 
never been far from home before. Leading the little 
girl by the hand she was walking to Queenstown and 
came in sight of the harbor from the top of the hill. 
The beauty of the scene impressed her, but she added 
a lesson for the benefit of the daughter : " Look at the 
beautiful sight and see how wonderful is the work of 
Nature. See the big ships side by side, and all around 
them their little ones." 

Queenstown is the harbor for Cork, which is twelve 
miles up the river Lee. It is the commercial metrop- 
olis of southern Ireland and has furnished more po- 
licemen to America than any town of twice its size in 
the United States. Of course the first thing we did 
was to ride in a jaunting-car and go to Blarney Castle. 
The castle looks just about as it did last summer on the 
Pike at St. Louis. But the surrounding grounds are 
as pretty as they can be. I hesitate when it comes to 
describing the park with its stately trees, its beautiful 
grassy slopes crowned with wild flowers, its moss and 
ivy which cling to wall and tree, covering defects, 



34 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

revealing charms, enhancing beauties. The castle it- 
self was built by McCarthy, king of Munster, in 1446, 
and while of course uninhabited and in partial ruin, 
is in good preservation, to make an Irish bull of it. 
We climbed to the top, we reveled in the rich scene 
around us, kissed the blarney stone and cheerfully gave 
the care-taker twice the usual fee because she said 
Americans were the best people on earth. Then we had 
the nicest lunch that has come our way since we left 
Kansas — an Irish lunch of bread and butter, cold ham 
and milk. We had traveled all morning and climbed 
among ruins from 12 to 2 o'clock. If you want the 
best lunch on earth, no matter what it is made of, 
climb towers for a couple of hours. 

There are some things that are peculiarly Irish. 
The jaunting-car is one of them. It is the favorite 
vehicle for driving. It looks like a two-wheel cart, 
driver's seat in the front end and passengers' seats back 
to back, facing outward. My fellow-traveler, Mr. Mc- 
Gregor, says the Irish brogue has perverted into jaunt- 
ing-car the real name, which is jolting-car. The driver 
is always a good fellow and he keeps the horse on the 
gallop much of the time. You have to learn to keep 
your seat on a jaunting-car as you do on a bicycle. 
You also have to learn to weigh the statements of 
your driver as to distances and legends as you do the 
promises of a candidate for office. We suggested to 
one that a jaunting-car driver had to lie. "We never 
lie, sir," said the Irishman. "But we stretch it a 
little." 



FIRST DAY IN IRELAND. 35 

After a week on shipboard, during which time I had 
patiently shaved myself, I yearned for the comforting 
work of a good barber. At the best hotel in Cork, a 
city of 80,000 people, I went to the best barber shop in 
town. The chair was just like a common wooden 
kitchen chair, only not quite so comfortable. There 
was a head-rest made out of a two-by-four scantling, 
and when the barber pulled my head back onto that 
I knew my dream of a comfortable shave was to be a 
nightmare. He made the lather in a wash-basin and 
I think he honed the razor on a grindstone. It cut 
all right when it didn't pull out by the roots. When 
the operation was finished he combed my hair with my 
head still back, washed my face with cold water and 
rubbed it with a coarse towel. The barber charged 
me twopence (equivalent to four cents). And that 
was my first experience with a European tonsorial 
artist. Perhaps sometime in my life I have felt cross 
at a barber at home because the razor pulled or be- 
cause he squirted bay rum into my eye. But in the 
future I will never murmur, except to recall my ex- 
perience in Cork and thank God for American barbers. 

The day we came to Cork there was an election for 
poor-law guardians, only a local affair, but I attended. 
The voting is by Australian ballot just as in America. 
The suffrage is restricted to householders, including 
those who pay a certain rent, and women vote the same 
as men. The politicians at the polling-place treated 
me well and explained all the methods. One of the 
workers told the judge that they should let me vote, as 



36 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

when he had visited his brother in America they had 
let him vote twice while there. I proposed that if 
they would let me vote for poor-law guardians in the 
county of Cork I would let any of them vote for coun- 
cilman in the Fourth ward of Hutchinson. We had a 
good friendly visit, and it was easy to see that Irishmen 
are politicians in the Old World as well as the New. 
After a man or woman voted he or she was always given 
a drink at the nearest place where "spirits" are sold. 
But when the polls closed instead of going ahead and 
counting the votes, the judges adjourned until noon the 
next day — the invariable custom. It was not until 
the afternoon following the election when it was learned 
who "stood at the top of the poll." We couldn't 
stand the pressure that long in America. 

There were placards up all around telling the voters 
to "vote the straight ticket," "vote for the interest 
of labor," and "vote for your own interests." The 
newspapers the next day told of the vicious conduct 
of the opposition and the immoral practices resorted 
to. But as a rule the Irish people are like Americans, 
accepting the result with good feeling and promises 
of what will be done to the other fellows the next time. 



BY KILLARNEY'S LAKES. 

Killarney, June 8, 1905. 
We have spent four days in the Irish mountains 
and have ridden a hundred miles in a jaunting-car 
and coach. I have had mountain scenery, lake scenery 
and plain scenery for every meal in the day. I enjoy 
scenery, but I fear I am getting it in too large quan- 
tities and am having it shaken too well while taking. 
Sunday was spent in Glengariff, a picturesque place 
where the mountains rise abruptly from the salt water 
of Bantry bay. Monday we coached from GlengarirT 
to Killarney and Tuesday we did the lakes with a 
jaunting-car, slightly assisted by a row-boat. The 
Irish mountains are not as high as the Rocky Mount- 
ains, but they are a very good imitation. The Rockies 
are grand and beautiful. The mountains of Cork and 
Kerry are pretty and beautiful. The Irish mountains 
are covered with green. It is as if the Rocky Mountains 
were smaller, covered with ivy and moss, dotted here 
and there with whitewashed cottages and flocks of 
sheep, and topped with a blue sky which is bluer than 
any indigo and clearer than any crystal. 

There are several ruined castles about Killarney. 
I am already getting to shy at ruined castles. The 
proposal to visit one makes my feet ache as an ap- 

(37) 



38 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

proaching thunder-storm affects some people's corns. 
We first went to Muckross Abbey, a well-preserved 
ruin about 400 years old. The Muckross family, which 
owned the estate, has played out, and the property has 
been bought by Guinness, the Dublin brewer, who was 
made a lord by Queen Victoria. Whatever the earl 
of Kenmare does not own around Killarney belongs to 
Guinness. You can imagine how Muckross Abbey 
looked 300 years ago when the old monks lived there 
and occupied the cells and cloister now unroofed. 
The banquet hall has a big fireplace and there are dark 
spiral stairways running up and down such as you read 
about in Ivanhoe. On the tombstones are inscriptions 
telling of the virtues and sanctity of knights and lords 
who would be considered tough bats if they lived nowa- 
days and swaggered around as they did in the good old 
times. I like to look at old tombstones and wonder what 
the men who lie beneath them would say if they could 
read the catalogue of virtues accredited to them. I 
always think of the little girl who had evidently been vis- 
iting Muckross Abbey, or some such place, and anxiously 
inquired if the people in those daj^s did not bury bad 
folks, as all who were interred there were supremely 
good. And then the thought comes up that all of 
these men were great and strong in their time, making 
history and imagining that they were cutting a gash 
in the world. Now they are forgotten and their deeds 
unknown, and they are the subjects of sportive re- 
marks by tourists from a country they never heard of. 



BY KILLARNEY'S LAKES. 39 

The lakes of Killarney have been praised in prose 
and verse , and they are up to the advance advertising. 
They are not large, but they nestle among the mount- 
ains and reflect on their clear surface the heights that 
surround them. There is a legend everywhere and the 
Irish driver knows them all. Here is a reasonable one : 
One of the O'Donohues, which family was once the 
royal power in Kerry, was hunting in the mountains. 
He met the devil, and the two had an altercation in 
which O'Donohue got decidedly the best of the ar- 
gument. The devil became so angry that he bit a 
big chunk out of a mountain. O'Donohue took his 
shillelah and hit the devil so hard a crack that he 
dropped the mouthful of mountain into the lake. 
This tale must be true, for as the driver said : " There's 
the place the devil bit and it is called so to this day, 
and out in the lake is the little island of rock, just as 
the devil dropped it into the water." 

Everybody who has read Tom Moore — and if anyone 
has not he should do so — will remember the lines : 

"There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet 
As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet." 

The meeting of the three Killarney lakes was re- 
ferred to, and Moore was telling truth as well as poetry. 
The upper lake and the middle lake narrow to small 
streams and flow together as they merge into the little 
rosebud of a mouth which the lower lake puts up to 
greet them. There is a rapid which the boat shoots for 
a sixpence, but it was not thrilling. In the triangular 



40 A JOURNEY OF A J AY HAWKER. 

park made by lakes and mountains are said to be 
specimens of every kind of tree known. The driver 
told this proudly, but when I called for a cottonwood 
he couldn't produce. Then I told him all about the 
wonderful cottonwood, and he promised to see the 
keeper and find out why they couldn't have one in 
Killarney. 

That reminds me of my experience with music. The 
first morning I awoke in Ireland at Queenstown I heard 
the voices of a number of sailors of the royal navy, and 
as the melodious sounds rolled into the window I was 
surprised to realize that they were singing " Under the 
Anheuser-Busch." At the hotel in Cork the orchestra 
played the same. At the theatre that night it was 
greeted with an encore. The driver on the jaunting- 
car whistled the tune. And last night when I had 
made friends with a cottager and was sitting with him 
by the side of a peat fire and he was telling me of Ire- 
land's woes, his little girl came in and he proceeded 
to show her off. First he had her sing an old Gaelic 
song. Then he said, "Now give us an American 
song," and she responded with "Under the Anheuser- 
Busch." 

I have hardly met an Irishman but has told me he 
had brothers and sisters in America. At GlengarifT 
the hotel proprietor said at least 2,000 young men and 
women had gone to America from that parish in the 
last few years — the brightest and best of the young 
people, he said — nearly all of them to Boston. From 



BY KILLARNEY'S LAKES. 41 

Killarney nearly all go to New York. I told them how 
Boston and New York were ruled by the Irish, and put 
the question as to why the Irish couldn't run Ireland. 
I am trying to answer that conundrum to my own 
satisfaction, and am gathering ideas on the subject 
from everyone I meet. 

The ordinary Irish village like Killarney is a quaint 
picture. The streets are narrow, mostly eight to 
twelve feet wide. The main street is about thirty feet 
wide. Nearly all the houses are a story or a story and 
a half, thatched roof, whitewashed walls, dirt floors 
except in one room, low ceilings, doors and windows, 
full of chickens, cats and children. I have not yet 
seen a pig in the parlor. The pig is kept in a little 
room at one side. But the chickens have as much 
liberty of the house as anybody and the goat is mon- 
arch of the outside. There is very seldom any yard, 
the houses being built right up to the street. The house 
is heated by a fireplace and the cooking is done in the 
same. Peat is the fuel, and it is cleaner and not sooty 
like coal. The dirt floor and the chickens in the 
house sound as though the Irish cottage would be dirty, 
but the whitewash and the scrubbing-brush fight on the 
other side, and you don't get that impression. The 
women-folks are always neat-looking and everybody is 
pleasant and cheerful. Every window has a window- 
box of geraniums. There are usually so many children 
that the house does not hold them, and the street is 
always filled with them. Remember when you are 
driving through a town the street is filled with children, 



42 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

and if you are an American and not used to it your 
heart will be jumping into your throat for fear some of 
them will be run over — but I am told they never are. 

After the chickens and the children the most novel 
sight is the donkeys with their two-wheel carts, the 
only ordinary carriages for passengers or freight of the 
people. The donkey is the size of our mountain burro, 
and has the same degree of intelligent expression. All 
of the hauling is done by this patient animal, and he 
is looked upon as a valued member of the family. 

In riding or walking the rule of the country is the 
same as in England — turn to the left. I have not yet 
gotten over the yearning to grab the lines from the 
driver when he turns to the left to avoid a passing 
carriage. Fortunately the other driver is always fool 
enough to also turn to the left. I confided my trouble 
to an Irish driver, and he said it was ridiculous to turn 
to the right. 

One of my traveling companions is a man who chews 
tobacco, and he had neglected to lay in a supply be- 
fore leaving America. No one else used the weed 
that way and there was no help for him. The Irish 
chew and smoke the same plug tobacco, very dry and 
not tasting like American tobacco. For a week my 
friend had been looking through shops trying to find 
something that would touch the spot. Last night 
soon after reaching Killarney he came to me greatly 
excited and said, "Hurry! the finest scenery since we 
left home." Away we went down the narrow street 
and up to a window in which was a familiar shape and 



BY KILLARNEY'S LAKES. 43 



a sign, "Battle Ax." I don't chew myself, but I have 
some bad habits, and I could appreciate the tear of 
joy that glistened in my fellow- traveler's eye as he 
gazed on that sign and felt that he had met an old 
friend just from home. 



IRELAND AND THE IRISH. 

Dublin, June 9, 1905. 

In my short stay in the Emerald Isle I have en- 
deavored to find out what is the matter with Ireland. 
Why is it that a country of great beauty and resources, 
with a healthful and productive climate, an intelligent 
and attractive people, is a country where poverty is 
widespread, although disguised by picturesque sur- 
roundings, and is accepted in such a matter-of-fact 
and almost nonchalant manner? Why is it that the 
population of Ireland is decreasing while the number 
of successful and prosperous Irishmen is rapidly in- 
creasing in America, Canada, and Australia? A very 
intelligent Irishman at Glengariff told me why it was, 
and this in brief is his story : 

A thousand years ago Ireland was ahead of all neigh- 
bors in education, religion, and refinement. Then 
came the civil wars between the chieftains. Then came 
England, and by utilizing the demoralization of the 
civil wars and playing one chieftain against another, 
acquired sovereignty. But this was only nominal, for 
the Irish chieftains did not submit permanently. In 
Glengarifl country the O'Sullivans maintained practi- 
cal independence. Finally the English rulers adopted 
the policy of confiscating the land of the rebellious 
chieftains and giving it to English soldiers and queen's 
favorites. In many places this meant the massacre 

(44) 



IRELAND AND THE IRISH. 45 



of the people. The O'Sullivans and their fighting men 
who escaped went to France and continued to strike 
at their Saxon foes. But the land passed into the 
ownership of strangers, who kept it only for the profit 
they could get out of it. The new Irish nobles lived 
in London and their agents ran the estates. When 
the nobles needed more money their agents advanced 
the rents. If the people who tilled the soil and whose 
tenancy had been unquestioned for generations, could 
not pay, they were evicted. Families were ejected 
from the places they had cultivated and made valuable 
and were set out on the road. This was done not with- 
out fighting for their rights by the Irish people, but 
by the superior force of English soldiers. No Irish 
farmer owns his place — he is only a tenant at the mercy 
of his absentee landlord, who does not know him. In 
other countries the feudal tenure has not worked so 
harshly, because the landlords lived among the people 
and were bound to them by ties of race, common his- 
tory, and natural affection. But the fact that there 
was no way for an Irishman to get his own home, or 
have a reasonable chance to advance in fortune or 
freedom, sent the brightest to America, and left the 
others to struggle hopelessly along, knowing that the 
best they could do was to "pay the rent," which was 
fixed like some railroad charges in the United States, 
on the basis of "all the traffic would stand." 

From the parish of Glengariff more than half the 
young men and at least half the young women have 
gone to the land of promise across the sea, and are send- 



46 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

ing back money to help the parents and brothers and 
sisters at home, either to "pay the rent" or to pay 
their passage to America. 

What is true at Glengariff applies to the rest of 
Ireland. The ancient chieftains, the O'Sullivans, the 
O'Donohues, the McCartys and the rest, were suc- 
ceeded by absentee landlords, and the law of supply 
and demand backed up by the English army simply 
worked out. At Killarney whatever land does not 
belong to the earl of Kenmare is the property of Guin- 
ness. The lakes and rivers are full of fish, but no Irish- 
man can catch a fish ; the mountains are full of game, 
but no one can hunt it except the owner of the estate. 
The farms are well tilled, but no one can buy the land 
upon which he works. It makes an American mad, 
and he says, "How do you stand it?" But it is the 
law, and along every country road there is a police- 
man and behind the policeman is the power of England. 
Far up on the mountain-side, several miles from town 
or settlement, I saw a fine stone building which on 
inquiry I found was a police station. The police, or 
the constabulary, as they are called, were not there to 
protect the lives of the citizens, but to prevent hunting 
and fishing in the brooks and mountains. So, after 
all, it is no wonder the Irishman leaves his beautiful 
island and emigrates to America. 

The Irish have kept the English Parliament in an 
uproar for a generation on this land question, and in 
recent years they have secured some friendly legisla- 
tion. A court can now fix the rent rate on appeal — 



IRELAND AND THE IRISH. 47 

but the English government names the court. So far 
as Englishmen of the present day are concerned they 
would be glad to get out of the Irish problem and let 
the Irish have their land, but of course that can't be 
done. The present parliament _ provided a plan for 
the eventual purchase of land by tenant, at a price to 
be fixed by the court if the two parties cannot agree. 
This is a step in the right direction and the Irish are 
glad of it, but as my GlengarirT friend said, " It will not 
do any good in this generation." And the exodus to 
America continues. 

The Irish are very intelligent. I do not think the 
poor people of any other country are naturally so bright 
and so full of perception and understanding. They are 
kind and gentle. They are affectionate and patriotic. 
The English say they are "lazy/' but under the cir- 
cumstances you could hardly expect them to be yearn- 
ing for work, when more work means more valuable 
holdings, and that only means more rent for the land- 
lord. The Irish have a reputation among the English 
for honesty. They are religious, and I thought at 
first they gave too much to the church and did not 
keep enough for themselves, when I saw the large and 
rich cathedrals. But, as an Irishman told me, "We'd 
rather give to the Lord than the landlord." Public 
schools are providing education for the rising genera- 
tion, and in the public school the boys and girls are 
being taught the Irish language and prepared for the 
coming fight which the Irish must make to capture 



48 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Ireland — not probably for an independent government 
but for actual ownership of the Irish soil. 

Taxes are heavy. The burden of taxation is the 
income tax. " That falls on the landlord/' the thought- 
less might say. Not on your life. The tax is simply 
added to the rent. There are fine public roads in 
Ireland, as good in the country districts as Main street 
in Hutchinson will be when it is paved. The only 
advantage a despotic government has over a popular 
government is that it builds better roads. When the 
people elect their own road bosses and levy their own 
road taxes I notice the roads are not so good as when 
some prince or cabinet minister who does not care 
what the people think, levies the tax and orders the 
road built right. The Irish statesmen are struggling 
for Irish ownership of Irish soil and an Irish parliament 
to deal with Irish affairs. They are "getting on/' 
and, as I said before, they make so much trouble in 
the English Parliament that I know the English would 
be glad to get rid of Irish local politics and give them 
back their parliament, if it were not for pride, — and the 
next parliament may cut out the pride. 

I want to record one fact which I was surprised to 
find. The Irish are very temperate. I have been in 
city, town and country for ten days, have not been 
careful about keeping in the nice parts of town, and 
I have seen only one man under the influence of liquor, 
and he was an English sailor at Queens town. This 



IRELAND AND THE IRISH. 49 

is in spite of the fact that every inn and grocery sells 
"spirits" and nearly everybody seems to drink them 
if he or she has the price. Perhaps the reason is that 
in Ireland all the liquor-selling is done by women — 
barmaids. Perhaps the influence of women behind the 
bar makes for temperance. I won't state that as my 
conclusion, but just submit it for what it is worth to 
those who are trying to solve the liquor question in 
other countries. 

Dublin is a good deal like an American city. It is 
full of business and not as Irish as the inland towns 
or Cork, although it has statues to O'Connell, Curran 
and Grattan, and will have one to Parnell. The lord 
lieutenant-governor, the representative of the king, 
resides at Dublin, and a big garrison of soldiers gives 
it an English tone. There is a fine university, which 
we visited. It was started by Queen Elizabeth, and 
has only recently been opened to Catholics and to 
women. Dublin has some great stores where Irish 
linen and Irish lace should naturally be cheap. If 
Mrs. Morgan were writing this letter she could add a 
chapter. I will only tell this little story : I was telling 
an Irish driver how nice everybody had been to us in 
Ireland and how pleasant the Irish were to Americans. 
"Yis," he said. "Whin }^ou go down the strate, 
everybody sez: There's some Americans, God bless 
'em: mark up the prices on the linen and lace.'" 

—4 



FRANCE. 



THE CITY OF PLEASURE. 

Paris, France, June 19, 1905. 

Since my last letter to The News we have been 
"going some," and I will leave a few ideas I may have 
gleaned about England until I get back there on my 
return from the continent. We are pushing for a short 
visit to Italy before the summer gets too far advanced. 

To use a classical expression, Paris is a bully sort of 
a town. If there is anything you want and don't know 
where it is, I am satisfied you will find it in Paris. In 
England it was customary to close up and go to bed 
sometime after midnight and to rest on Sunday. No- 
body in Paris thinks of either proposition. The only 
difference between Paris at midnight and Paris at 
midday is that it is livelier at midnight. The per- 
formance is continuous and it is worth the price of 
admission. 

¥¥¥ 

Coming into a country where your language is not 
generally spoken is always a little trying on the nerves. 
The French people have made it as easy as possible, 
but the ways are strange and the helpless tourist can 
only do as others do and trust to Providence and the 
power of a little money distributed as well as possible. 
I do not know how much Providence has had to do 
with it, but I do believe there are mighty few doors in 
France which a piece of money will not unlock. When 

(53) 



54 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

I came into France I knew only two French expres- 
sions, one meaning "How much?" and the other, 
" Thank you. " With that vocabulary we went through 
the custom-house examination, a five-hour railroad 
journey, landed in a big city station, got a carriage, 
reached the hotel and an interpreter without any more 
trouble than we would have in Sterling. Of course 
everybody from conductor to porter knew we were 
Americans and could not speak French, knew what we 
ought to do next and showed the way, and all we had 
to do was to look pleasant and hand out small change. 
And it doesn't cost much to be liberal in France. I 
gave the conductor an equivalent to our 10 cents, and 
I know he thought I was rich. The porter who took 
my baggage through the custom-house and brought 
me a carriage was deeply impressed with my financial 
standing when I gave him 6 cents worth of French 
coppers. The coachman who brought Mrs. Morgan 
and myself with four big grips from the station to the 
hotel, two miles, charged me the full price, 30 cents for 
everything, and when I tossed him another dime like 
a millionaire he took his hat off three times. The 
French people I have met have been very polite. 
They always tip their hats and go out of their way to 
show me, and they are never so discourteous as to re- 
fuse 2 cents. Imagine giving a Santa Fe conductor 10 
cents for showing you where to sit in the car! 

As a lesson in political economy I will put in my 
observation so far as I have gone: Everything in 
Europe that is made or done by labor is cheap. I was 



THE CITY OF PLEASURE. 55 

offered a tailor-made suit of clothes in London for 
$18 that would cost $30 in Hutchinson. A farm 
laborer in England gets about 50 cents a day and boards 
himself. The barber shaves you for 2 or 3 cents. 
Bread and meat are higher than in the United States. 
You can see how the wage-earner gets it going and com- 
ing. I am learning a few things from experience that 
I had been told before, but I want to visit a few more 
places before I try to form my conclusions and put 
them into print. 

Paris is a beautiful city. In spite of the great busi- 
ness houses, the manufactories and the banks which I 
have seen, it strikes me as a kind of play town. Ev- 
ery day in the week in Paris looks like an American 
town on the Fourth of July, and on Sunday it is Fourth 
of July and Christmas together and then some. The 
men who are working at wages that would make Amer- 
icans vicious, are as light-hearted and pleasant appear- 
ing as a Sunday school picnic. The women are as 
vivacious as a lot of school ma'ams at institute. As 
soon as work is completed it seems as if every Parisian 
only goes home to put on his good clothes and then 
comes down town accompanied by his wife, or some- 
body's wife. Half the places of business along the 
principal streets are restaurants and a good many of 
the others are also restaurants. The Frenchman sits 
at a little table on the sidewalk in front of the cafe and 
puts in the evening drinking one glass of wine or ab- 
sinthe, chatting with his neighbor and watching the 
women go by with their good clothes and bright faces. 
Every French woman is an artist when it comes to 



56 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

clothes. The goods may not cost much, but the gown 
is tastefully made, and if the lady wants to she sticks 
on a bow or jabs a flower in her hat, regardless of every 
rule except that it looks pretty there — and it always 
does. Bright and light gowns, hats that are up-to-date 
or ahead, hair to match the hat and hose to match the 
dress — and the artist's work is done. No wonder the 
men hurry down town and sit on the sidewalk! 

In the afternoon and evening the Paris streets look 
like a spring millinery opening — also like a display of 
samples of fine hosiery. Perhaps I ought not to go 
into the subject, but it will not be a fair description of 
Paris if I leave it out, and I must warn any other Kan- 
san who may venture this way. When a Parisian lady 
walks along a sidewalk that is perfectly clear and clean 
she daintily lifts her dress so as to display only the 
top of the shoe, maybe an inch or two more. Some- 
times she thoughtlessly raises the gown a little higher. 
When she reaches the street-crossing — but I had better 
stop, for she doesn't. I have always been of the opin- 
ion that under such circumstances a plain, respectful 
man should look the other way and I have a crick in 
my neck from looking — the other way — since I came 
to Paris. Remember this is in fine weather when the 
walks and crossings are clean. "They say" that when 
the walks are muddy the result is even more startling 
to a staid observer from Kansas. If the weather gets 
bad I don't know what I will do. 




IN PARIS : LOOKING THE OTHER WAY. 



THE CITY OF PLEASURE. 57 

The philosophy in the above is that it gives you an 
idea of Paris with its brilliantly lighted streets, the 
men eating and drinking, sitting at the little tables 
along the walks, the well-dressed people, the brilliant 
colors, the laughter, the bright and polite conduct of 
men and women, the holiday appearance, the pleasure 
that everyone is having, and the general gait at which 
Parisians travel. As another example let me add, fully 
one-third of that part of Paris which in any other city 
would be devoted to business, is given up to public 
gardens, playgrounds for children, parks and drives, — 
not out in the country or to one side, but right through 
the center of Paris. The houses, business and resi- 
dence, are none of them more than six stories high, and 
I am told the law does not permit higher structures. 
It is a good idea, for you get air and sunlight, which 
you often do not in New York and Chicago, and you 
can occasionally see out over the city. About every 
so often is a circle or square from which radiate from 
six to a dozen avenues and boulevards. These streets 
divide into others which reach forward to other squares, 
and are intersected at every conceivable angle by cross- 
streets. The object of this plan was to place artillery 
in the square and thus command the streets and bou- 
levards against the revolutionists, who have always been 
doing or about to do something in Paris. The houses, 
five or six stories high, are built right up from the 
sidewalk, and have inner courts. Usually there are 
stores or shops in the downstairs rooms facing the 
street and living-rooms back and above. And speak- 
ing of stores, most of them are about ten by twelve 



58 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

feet, one-half display window. The interior is lined 
with mirrors which make the room look large and two 
or three customers like a crowd. The French use 
mirrors every chance — there are three beautiful mir- 
rors in our small bedroom. The shops are generally 
decorated with flowers, pictures and statuary and a 
sign "English spoken/' the latter being usually a de- 
lusion and a snare. Instead of naming a street or 
avenue and then sticking to it, the names of the streets 
frequently change. The boulevard our hotel is on 
begins as the Madeleine, runs two blocks and then be- 
comes the Capoucins, two blocks more and it is the 
Italiens. We are on the Capoucins part, and besides 
the Boulevard des Capoucins, there is street " Rue des 
Capoucins," and a square "Place des Capoucins," each 
in a different section. The necessity of a stranger in 
Paris keeping sober is very apparent. The streets, 
squares and public buildings are adorned with frequent 
statues — good ones. Almost any way you turn there 
is something beautiful to look at. The French are 
artists and lovers of art. If there were such a thing 
as a Kansas joint in Paris it would be decorated like an 
art gallery. But the joints in Paris are open and run 
twenty-four hours a day, seven days in the week, and 
the police never interfere with anything that goes on 
except in case of a disturbance of the peace or abuse of 
the government. 

The French like Americans and don't like the Eng- 
lish or the Germans. But that does not mean they 
refuse anybody's money. In our country when a man 



THE CITY OF PLEASURE. 59 



gets a comfortable income he grows gray-haired and 
wrinkled trying to make more. A Frenchman spoke 
to me of this trait, and said that when one of his coun- 
trymen reached the point where he could live nicely 
on what he had accumulated or the salary he was re- 
ceiving, he quit worrying and took to the cafes and 
boulevards to enjoy life. Perhaps the French way is 
the best, at least the French look happier over mighty 
little than we do over much more. They go in for 
"pleasure" and they enjoy it as do no other people I 
have seen. 



PARIS AND PARISIANS. 

Paris, June 20, 1905. 
Almost the first thing we did after we reached Paris 
was to go to the Place de la Concorde, where the guillo- 
tine did its bloody work during the French Revolution. 
It is now a beautiful square adorned with statues, and 
is the center of the pleasure-ground of Paris. After 
tightly shutting our eyes so as to avoid seeing the gay 
Parisians passing by, we recalled the terrible scenes 
which took place a little more than a hundred years 
ago. Here Louis XVI., the unfortunate king, paid 
the penalty for the crimes of his family and class. 
Here Marie Antoinette was executed, and scores and 
hundreds of the French nobility. Poor Marie Antoi- 
nette, who always did and said the wrong thing, has 
been the recipient of the sympathy of the world. But 
in addition to the sorrow for her I have never been able 
to get over my sympathy for the thousands of women 
who marched to Versailles and when the king and queen 
appeared to quiet them, cried, " Give us bread for our 
children!" For France at that time was suffering as 
no other nation has suffered from physical oppression 
and poverty resulting from misgovernment and utter 
disregard of the lives and property of the people. In 
order to carry on wars and build monuments and pal- 
aces and indulge in personal dissipation and pleasure, 
the rulers of France had sucked the life of the nation 

(60) 



PARIS AND PARISIANS. 61 

like the juice from an orange. The French still make 
a great fuss over Louis XIV., "The grand monarch/' 
who made France the leading nation of Europe. But 
it was the logical outcome of his methods and grinding 
government that resulted in the degradation of the 
people, their poverty and distress, and the revolution 
which sent his great grandson to the block. 

After the French Jacobins executed their king and 
queen they began to fall out and "revolute" against 
each other, and so nearly all the leaders of the revolu- 
tion went to the guillotine and got it where Louis and 
Antoinette did — in the neck. In a little more than 
two years over 2,800 persons perished here by the guil- 
lotine, and the place is very appropriately called " de la 
Concorde." Around the square are statues repre- 
senting eight of the cities of France, the one for S trass- 
burg still there, but draped in black and with emblems 
of mourning for the city and province taken from 
France by Germany at the end of the last war. Every 
Frenchman has in his heart the intent to lick the Ger- 
mans and recover Alsace. 

I will not attempt to describe in detail the great 
palaces of the Tuileries and the magnificent gardens, 
the Louvre with its acres of paintings and statuary, 
most of which I did not see because it was like eating 
pie — there is a limit. These are historic grounds, for 
back and forth among statues of peace and beautiful 
works of art the French people have fought each other 
time and again, sometimes destroying but always re- 
building. From Place de la Concorde extends the 



62 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Champs-Elysees (pronounced Shame-on-Lizzy, as near 
as I can get it). This is a great avenue 400 yards wide 
and over a mile long, consisting of parallel boulevards 
running through trees and flowers, playgrounds and 
palaces here and there, and at all times of the day and 
night filled with people and carriages. 

The Champs-Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne, a 
park of over 2,000 acres in which it terminates, are the 
fashionable drives of Paris. It cost only 40 cents an 
hour for Mrs. Morgan and I to drive with the Parisian 
elite, and we took advantage of the opportunity to see 
Paris society. The carriages in the early evening ex- 
tend in procession over miles of boulevard, and are 
often six or eight abreast. The drives wind around 
through woods, by good-sized lakes, along sides of 
cascades, and the carriages are filled with the swellest 
lot of gowns and cutest little dogs I have ever seen. 
Nearly every woman has a dog on her string as well as 
a man. In all of this style there is a general lack of 
formality which is appropriate to the scenery. It is 
not an uncommon sight to see the ladies and gentlemen 
with their arms around each other. It isn't so bad 
when you get used to it, and the fashion is considered 
strictly proper in France. I am no longer shocked 
when I see a young man just ahead of me in the street 
put his arm around his girl, and in the street cars and 
automobiles the sight is a frequent one and never at- 
tracts comment or disapproval. At first Mrs. Morgan 
and I nudged each other at such things, but in less than 
a week's time the novelty has disappeared. 

I like the Champs-Elysees, for it looks a good deal 



PARIS AND PARISIANS. 63 

as First avenue in Hutchinson would if it were about 
ten times as wide and the city kept up the parking. 

And that leads me to repeat an observation which I 
have made before. It takes a strong government to 
do big things. You couldn't get the people in America 
to put up money to construct palaces, widen boule- 
vards, set up statues in all directions and devote the 
main part of the city to trees, flowers, walks and drives, 
playgrounds and art galleries. But whether the gov- 
ernment of France has been a monarchy or a republic 
has made no difference in the fact that it exercised 
nearly absolute power over such things. The gov- 
ernment appoints the officials in all cities and provinces 
and the government has the army. We talk about 
"government ownership" as if it were something new. 
The government of France has been in business more 
than a century. For example, the government has the 
monopoly of the tobacco business — manufactures and 
sells all the tobacco used in France, charges what it 
pleases and puts out mighty poor stuff. The govern- 
ment has owned the Sevres china decorating factory 
for over a century, and the Gobelin tapestry, and I don't 
know how many more such things. Lack of knowl- 
edge of the language has kept me from finding out 
all on these subjects I am going to before I get home, 
but it seems to me that whenever the French govern- 
ment sees some exceptionally profitable business, it 
just takes hold of the proposition and passes a law 
forbidding anyone else competing. The French are 



64 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

used to this sort of thing and accept it as the inevitable. 
I wonder if Americans would stand for it and for all the 
petty regulations that go with it. An army of working- 
men is required to maintain all these parks, palaces , 
art galleries, opera-houses and government institu- 
tions, and I suspect the number is never reduced. A 
friend was telling how in a short ride on a government 
railroad his ticket was examined by five conductors. 
We reached the conclusion that this work, which in 
America would have been done by one man, was strung 
out for the good political reason — more jobs. Of course 
nothing like that would happen in America. 

The workingmen still wear the long blouse outside 
the trousers, which looks like a heavy night-shirt and 
reaches below the knees. At the time of the great 
revolution the workingmen were so poor that they 
could not afford to wear trousers and the long blouses 
were all that covered them. Hence came the nick- 
name "sanscullottes," meaning "without breeches," 
and as all who have read the story of the revolution or 
Victor Hugo's books will remember, the Sansculottes, 
the men without breeches, made up the mob which 
upset the throne and established the republic. 

The French still worship Napoleon. They have for- 
given the sacrifice of blood and treasure which he 
forced from them, and remember the glory and the 
greatness of the empire. And in spite of the fact that 
Napoleon III. quit the emperor business under a cloud, 



PARIS AND PARISIANS. 65 

having been removed from office after his surrender to 
the Germans in 1870, he is well thought of, for during 
his reign France and Paris prospered and times were 
good. There is a large party in France that favors the 
return of the present representative of the Napoleon 
family, Prince Victor, to the throne. We went to the 
Church of Madeleine, the most beautiful and fashionable 
church in Paris, and over the altar is a beautiful paint- 
ing of Napoleon receiving the crown from the pope, 
with Christ in the background of the picture. That 
is just like the French. 

I made an effort to get into the meeting of the 
Chamber of Deputies, the French congress, but failed. 
You have to have a ticket of admission, and it must be 
applied for several days in advance. They tell me the 
session is a good deal like an old-time Kansas Populist 
convention, where everybody said what he wanted to 
and then everybody was of the same opinion still. 
The meeting often gets so tumultuous that the presi- 
dent of the body adjourns it. Such an assembly must 
be guarded by careful and tactful leadership or it will 
end in a row. I can't understand French politics. 
There are really no parties such as we have. A 
large majority favor the republic. The minority is 
composed of Clericals, Bonapartists, Radicals, and So- 
cialists. The government party is divided into fac- 
tions, and the issues are personal rather than on eco- 
nomic questions. The minority is of course divided, 
and the result is that the government wins somehow or 
other nearly every time. If it should lose, a new cabi- 



66 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

net would be formed; but that would be taken from 
the same party as the old, and would be merely a dif- 
ferent lot of statesmen. The French republic is all 
right so long as there is no serious trouble, but a Dreyfus 
incident, or a war, or hard times might overturn the 
government, and nobody knows whether the mon- 
archists might not get on top again. The church is 
opposed to the policy of the republic, which has been 
to decrease the power of the church, cut off the paro- 
chial schools, and take education out of the hands of 
the religious bodies. The men in France are not very 
religious, leaving that part of life to the women and 
children. But a large and respectable party is in op- 
position to the government on account of the way it 
has confiscated church property and driven out the 
religious orders. 

There are only a few electric lines in Paris, and they 
are not in the main part of the city. The people use 
carriages a great deal, for they are so cheap ; and also 
omnibuses. The usual means of traveling in the city, 
aside from the cab, is the omnibus, which is double- 
decked, carrying as many people on top as inside. 
This seems a trifle slow to Americans, but it works all 
right in Paris. The 'buses make regular processions 
up and down the principal streets, and as they are 
nearly always filled inside and outside, they add im- 
mensely to the Parisian picture. There is an under- 
ground railroad and there are dummy lines in the 
suburbs, but I think the people of Paris like to travel 
where thev can see and be seen. The cabs are victorias. 



PARIS AND PARISIANS. 67 

Automobiles are everywhere, and if you go to Paris to 
live and want to cut any ice you must get one. 

I saw a little scene which seemed to show up Pa- 
risian character. A cab collided slightly with another. 
Immediately both drivers were off their vehicles, ges- 
ticulating and talking about 300 words a minute. As 
they shook their fists and grew red in the face with the 
words that came so fast they interfered with each other, 
I thought somebody would surely be killed. Nobodj^ 
noticed them. No one paid an}^ attention. And 
finally the two exhausted men climbed back to their 
places and drove on. I know they used French words 
to each other that in America would have insured a 
police court trial for disturbance of the peace. A 
French friend to whom I mentioned the matter said it 
was the invariable way, and he thought the French 
method of taking out their wrath in words was better 
than the American way of fighting it out. Perhaps 
he was right, but as I afterward saw the scene repeated 
in different forms it always occurred to me that it was 
childish. And that reminds me to say that the French- 
man is in the habit of playing with his children, taking 
part in their games as excitedly as they do. 

The French people are industrious and they save 
their money. France is really a rich nation Most 
of the money is made in what seem small ways to 
Americans. The French are what we call "thrifty." 
No matter how little they earn they save something, 



A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 



and the whole family works, — men, women and chil- 
dren. When their day's labor is ended the whole fam- 
ily goes out for a good time — cheap, or within their 
means. Their natural temperaments and the beauti- 
ful surroundings make it easy for them to do this, and 
it is very seldom a Frenchman leaves his native land. 
He doesn't travel much, but he believes in other people 
traveling and coming to France to spend their money. 
He is willing to help in the good work of separating 
foreigners from their cash, but he is gentlemanly about 
it. I like the French people even though I can't 
understand some of the ways their minds work. 



RURAL FRANCE. 

Marseilles, France, June 23, 1905. 
Rural France is a picture. Seen from a car-window 
it is a succession of fields and villages, at this time of 
year a continuous combination of greens and white. 
French farms are small. I suppose twenty or thirty 
acres is a big place, and many are much less than that. 
But the land is fertilized, drained, irrigated and worked 
to the limit. The people live in villages and not much 
on their own farms. Each village has a common pas- 
ture. During the day the farmers go out onto their 
little places and in the evening they return to town to 
spend the hours with their neighbors and friends. The 
houses are all white stone with red tiled roofs and the 
villages are numerous, one every two or three miles in 
every direction. A farm of twenty acres is divided 
into strips for various crops, so that the landscape is 
striped with the fields of wheat, alfalfa, potatoes and 
grass, which seem to be the popular products. Cattle 
are not so numerous, but sheep are plentiful, goats 
abound and hogs (always white that I have seen) are 
on every place. A strip of land a hundred yards wide 
in wheat will run across the twenty acres, and the next 
strip will be some other crop, making the hues of green 
vary. The most extensive crop besides grass is grapes, 
and hillsides which in our country would be considered 

(69) 



70 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

too steep and too stony for cultivation are covered 
with vines. Nature is like the French, artistic when 
she has a chance, and the combination produces a 
beautiful effect. Coming from Paris to Marseilles 
through the valleys of the Seine and the Rhone, it was 
500 miles of continuous agriculture and pretty towns. 
Do you wonder it looks like a picture, with the villages 
of white houses and red tops, the fields and hills of 
green, and the rivers like ribbons running here and 
there? 

France is ahead of England and Ireland in this point : 
Nearly every French farmer owns his own place, even 
if it is small. In Great Britain the big landlords own 
the land and rent it to tenants. In France the farm- 
ers, or peasants, as they are called, are landlords of 
their own if it is small. .The French nobility lost their 
possessions and they were bought up by the people. A 
French farmer does not have the opportunity to make 
himself a large land proprietor. He can work all his 
days andtonly hope to accumulate a little place and 
enough to take care of him in his last days. But he is 
able to do that, and it has been almost impossible to 
do so in Great Britain. 

The farms are separated from one another by high 
stone walls. In driving along the highway these walls 
shut off the view of the fields and you have to get up 
above the walls to see the picture. The stone walls 
are the evidence that the place is the exclusive property 
of the owner.% The grass field is inclosed by these high 
fences, and the gates are locked at night as if they were 
afraid somebody would steal the land. It looks strange 



RURAL FRANCE. 71 

indeed to a tourist from the land of quarter-sections 
and barb wires. 

Every Frenchman has to serve in the army three 
years. This is not militia service, but regular soldiery. 
It takes three of the best years out of a young man's 
life. Of course it gives some compensation in the way 
of discipline, and in continental Europe every nation 
has to keep its pockets full of rocks and its people 
ready for war with the neighbors. A republic cannot 
neglect this matter any more than a monarchy, and 
France loses a great deal b}^ the withdrawal of its young 
men from the producing class during a time when they 
could be very useful. 

In the fields men and women work side by side. The 
women of France have plenty of rights. They can 
plow or rake hay all day long, and then they can in- 
dulge in the recreation of housework in the evening. 
This is harvest- time, and on nearly every farm I saw 
the whole family at work, not with reapers and mowers, 
but with good sickles and hand-rakes. The women 
seem to age earlier than in America, but this fact is 
true wherever I have be*en outside of the United States. 

That reminds me of a mistaken notion I had before 
coming here. I thought the women of the United 
States were more active in a business way than the 
women of other countries, and had progressed in taking 
hold of what is generally called "men's work" more 
than the women of Europe. That is a mistake. Pro- 
portionately women have more to do with business in 
England and France than they do in America. Nearly 



72 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

all the hotels in Great Britain are managed by women. 
Shops, stores and offices are filled with women. The 
fact is, the combined labor of husband and wife is nec- 
essary among "the great plain people/' to get enough 
to support the family, and in Ireland, England and 
France this is taken as a matter of course. Especially 
in France do I find women managing business, and do- 
ing so with the skill and success which shows that it is 
neither a new thing nor a side occupation. In America 
it is generally accepted that a man who can do so will 
take the brunt of the work and a woman will find her 
time fully occupied with housekeeping. And there is 
also a widespread practice of raising the girls to sit in 
the parlor while their mother washes the dishes. That 
is not the way they do in France. A young woman is 
brought up to expect what she will get — a young man 
whom she will have to help, or they will go hungry. 
There are not many chances for a young man to get 
ahead fast. He has no reason to believe that he will 
be better fixed than his father or than his grandfather. 
In fact, in France a boy usually follows the occupation 
of his father, so that a family for generations will be 
farmers, shoemakers, shop-keepers, etc. In America 
a farmer usually wants his son to study law, while a 
lawyer hopes his son will be a business man, and a mer- 
chant sees the advantage of rural life. Our people 
change around from generation to generation, and I 
doubt on that account if we make as good workmen as 
the French do, who are brought up in their occupation. 
Of course our people would be discontented with the 
French way, but the Frenchmen seem to be satisfied 



RURAL FRANCE. 73 

and they get a good many compensating advantages 
to offset the opportunities which young Americans 
have, but of which young Frenchmen never dream. 

There are some disadvantages under which these 
Europeans labor which they should remove. They 
never get any pie. Here in a land where the cherries 
grow big and red and juicy, a Frenchman will grow to 
manhood and old age without knowing the taste of 
cherry pie. It is a great misfortune. Since landing 
in Europe I have never seen a piece of pie of any de- 
scription, from Queenstown to Marseilles. They have 
"tarts" and "sweetmeats," but these can't approach 
pie any more than Cow creek can be compared to the 
Mississippi river. Even in the best hotels and restau- 
rants of London there is no sign of pie on the bill of fare, 
and the French cooks, who can make old hash taste 
like choice bits of fresh meat or better, have not learned 
the science of constructing pie, mince, apple, pumpkin, 
cherry or any kind of pie. I do not know how they do 
it, but the railroad restaurants are run without pie. 
Even the crowned heads go through life without know- 
ing the taste of pumpkin pie, and one of my ideas of 
royalty in my early days was that a king or prince 
could have custard pie with flaky brown crust three 
times a day. No wonder the rulers of Europe are 
afraid of revolution. If they would see that their 
subjects had square meals and pie at least for dinner, 
the heads that wear the crowns need not be so uneasy. 

And the Europeans are trying to live without hot 
cakes for breakfast. I suppose there is not a man or 



74 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

woman in Europe who would recognize by experience 
the rich and regal buckwheat cake, or the corn cake, 
or the pancake. I can't understand why the reformers 
in this country do not get to the point, and see that the 
people have flapjacks for breakfast as well as pie for 
dinner, and then let the disbanding of the armies pro- 
ceed. 

Every American citizen who is sane and patriotic 
believes that he is a fisherman, and tries to prove it 
whenever he gets near a creek or river. Whether he 
actually catches any fish or not, he "goes fishing." 
I was somewhat worked up in Ireland and England 
because the streams were nearly all private property 
and the ordinary citizen had no chance to fish any 
more than he did to attend the wedding of the prince. 
I was glad to know that it is different in France. Last 
Sunday in Paris we walked along the banks of the Seine 
as it runs through the city between the stone walls and 
under the stone bridges. The stream was lined with 
fishermen. One of the privileges the citizens of Paris 
enjoy is to fish in the Seine, and I was told that there 
were at least 10,000 Frenchmen watching the corks on 
the river that afternoon. I waited for a long time to 
see them catch a French fish. Occasionally one of the 
men or women would pull up a line, but the bait was 
never missing. Finally I asked a friend who has been 
in Paris some time if anybody ever caught a fish. He 
said he had never really heard of anyone but there was 
a tradition that along about the time of Napoleon III. 
somebody did catch a fish in the Seine. He doubted 



RURAL FRANCE. 75 



the story, but said I could believe it if I wanted to. 
And yet there are theologians and doctors of divinity 
who say the French people are. losing in faith, when 
these thousands were demonstrating to the contrary 
and were heartily enjoying the privilege the govern- 
ment gives and for which the Parisians would doubtless 
fight, the right to fish in the river. 

This city of Marseilles, in which we are spending a 
couple of days, is the principal seaport of France. It 
was established by the Phoenicians, and was an im- 
portant town when Julius Caesar was setting up the 
primaries in Rome. It is the port from which France 
does business with southern Europe, Africa, Asia, and 
even America. Consequently the harbor is full of all 
kinds of shipping, the streets are crowded with Arabs, 
Greeks, Spaniards, Turks, Italians, and representa- 
tives of all nations which use the sea, and the town has 
the largest collection of odors and smells that I have 
met. As a strange fact I will add that Marseilles is the 
first large city I have visited in Europe with a good 
up-to-date electric railway system. Americans do not 
come here very much. So far as I know, Mrs. Morgan 
and I are the only Americans in the city, and there is 
not a soul at our hotel who can speak English. So you 
see we are running up against a little real foreign ex- 
perience. 



ITALY 



GETTING INTO ITALY. 

Rome, June 27, 1905. 
One can hardly realize until he has had some ex- 
perience how quick and how decided is the transition 
from one country to another, and especially the change 
in language. At 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon we 
were in France, everybody around us and on the train 
talking French. At 6 o'clock we were in Italy: every- 
body was talking Italian, and the French language had 
disappeared as quickly as did the English when we 
landed at Calais. You know when you are going from 
one country to the next, also, because the custom- 
house is on the line and you have to haul out all your 
dirty clothes and souvenirs for the officials to examine 
to see if you are a smuggler. Let me tell how we came 
into Italy. 

We boarded the train on the French railroad at 
Monte Carlo and had an hour's ride to the frontier. 
By this time I had picked up enough French so I could 
get along reasonably well with the help of the sign 
language and a little money. But neither of us knew 
a word of Italian, and there was no one with us that 
day who could talk English. At Vintimille, where we 
crossed the line, we had to change trains, have our tick- 
ets signed and our baggage examined in forty minutes. 
With a full realization that nobody could understand 

(79) 



80 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

me and I could understand no one, I tackled the job, 
putting my trust in Providence and a pocketful of 
small Italian coins which I had secured at Monte Carlo. 
When the train stopped in the Vintimille station a 
porter came alongside and according to the custom of 
the country I handed the four "bags" which consti- 
tute our baggage to him through the car- window. 
Then we got out and I told him in English what I 
wanted. He reeled off a lot of Italian and two or 
three bystanders chipped in, and a hotel runner at- 
tempted to capture us. But I took out my through 
ticket, pointed to it, jingled the coins in my pocket, and 
the porter understood. Of course I did not know at 
first whether he did or not, but we followed him and he 
led us into the custom-house and put our grips on a 
big table. Up came an inspector and jabbered Italian 
and I jabbered back in English. We both laughed, 
and of course neither understood what the other 
wanted. He asked me several questions, to all of 
which I said, "Can't understand/ 7 and then he gave 
me a final grin and said, "Tobac?" To that I said 
"No," and shook my head. Without looking into the 
grips at all he chalked something on them which I sup- 
pose corresponds to our "O. K.," threw up his hands 
and said something to the porter which made him and 
the surrounding onlookers burst forth in a loud guf- 
faw. I felt as I suppose a poor Dago does when he 
strikes America. I again showed my ticket to the 
porter and pointed to the place where it must be signed. 
He puzzled over that a while and then took it and 
went away for a few minutes and came back with the 



GETTING INTO ITALY. 81 

work properly done. Then he took us to the Italian 
train the other side of the station, put our bags in the 
racks and we hoped we were on the right train — we 
were. I gave that porter a lot of Italian money, ag- 
gregating about 20 cents American, and he saluted me 
as if I were a duke or a saint. Mrs. Morgan says I 
spoiled him with my extravagant tip. But I felt so 
grateful to him that I didn't care if I did make him 
proud with all that money at once. Let him swell up 
inside and parade the avenue all the evening and take 
his family out to dinner if he wants to. Let him take 
that 20 cents and pose as an Italian Rockefeller. 

Then we were in Italy and couldn't even read the 
signs. It makes you foolish to look over the door of 
your car and see the words which mean "Smoking 
permitted," or "Smoking forbidden" and not know 
which. We were the only people in the compartment, 
and the conductor took a great deal of interest in us. 
He tried to tell us something and I tried to tell him 
something, but when we got through neither of us had 
added to our stock of knowledge. After the train had 
been going for a while he came to us and began to make 
signs and chatter. He held up both hands with the 
fingers extended. Mrs. Morgan was quite sure he meant 
$10 fine for smoking in that compartment, so I threw 
away my cigar, but he didn't stop. At last I realized 
that he was making the signs of a man eating and 
drinking. I guessed he meant by both hands that the 
train would stop ten minutes for lunch, or that we 
wouldn't get anything to eat until 10 o'clock. When 



82 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

the train stopped at the next station it turned out that 
the first of these two was right. 

The road from Vintimille to Genoa is a branch, and 
the ticket had to be signed and trains changed again 
at Genoa, and we also wanted to get a sleeping-car on to 
Rome. We had twenty-seven minutes at the station 
in Genoa, which is bigger than the Union Depot at 
Kansas City. Again I threw the grips out of the win- 
dow and followed the porter. Then I left Mrs. Morgan 
with the baggage while the porter led me a merry 
chase around the block to the office where the ticket 
was to be signed or "vised." It was 11 o'clock at 
night, and you can imagine how it felt to be guided 
around among those Italians wondering all the while 
if the porter knew what I wanted. But he did and I 
returned in safety, and then I tried to find out about 
the sleeping-car. In French this is called a "Litts- 
salon," and in German a "Schlaf-wagen," literally a 
sleep-wagon. I tried English, French and German, 
but finally found the sleeper by examining the train, — 
next to the engine, of course, just where I wasn't ex- 
pecting it. We got on board safely, and after distrib- 
uting a lot more Italian coppers I found we had trans- 
acted the business and had five minutes to spare, — as 
good time as I could have made in America to do all 
those things. All I then had to do was to hand out 
the required sleeper fare, $7.50 to Rome, 300 miles, 
three times what Mr. Pullman would have charged. 
But I reserve my comments on European sleeping-cars 
until I get a little more experience for a letter on rail- 
roads in the Old World. 



GETTING INTO ITALY. 83 

And this is an old world. When I was in Boston I 
looked with awe upon the churches and monuments 
of 1776. In England these years seemed recent, and 
it took a cathedral or a castle of Elizabeth's time or 
back to William the Conqueror. But here in Rome 
the very latest and newest buildings that we look at 
are those of the early Christians, and to get a real thrill 
they have to show me something B. C. It is really a 
good deal like living back in those times. I can't read 
the newspapers and don't know what has happened 
since I left Paris nearly a week ago. At that time the 
Russians and Japs were either going to have a con- 
ference or a fight, or both. Sometimes I wonder 
what has occurred, but generally I am concerning 
myself with what Julius Caesar did, standing by the 
old forum and imagining Mark Antony denouncing 
the boss-busters, or wondering if Cicero's speech against 
Catiline was not a political blunder which would make 
the old man trouble at the next city election. The 
only difficulty is to make the modern Italians fit in 
with the old Romans. Somehow or other it is hard to 
imagine the lazy gents who hold out their hands for 
coppers as real Romans who ruled the world. 

The first real striking feature of Italy we noticed at 
Vintimille was the policemen. They wear handsome 
full-dress uniforms with red braid down the trousers, 
gilt lace and epaulets on the coats, tri-cornered hat 
with an immense plume, and carry in sight a sword and 
revolver. An Italian policeman walking his beat makes 
a gorgeous Knight Templar uniform look cheap. You 



84 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

never see one policeman — there are always two to- 
gether. The police of the whole country are appointed 
by the royal government, not by local officials, and 
are selected from the army. They are good-looking 
fellows, and wear their tight, heavy coats buttoned up 
in front regardless of the fact that it is Italy and the 
climate is not better than Kansas the last of June. 
One of the troubles with Italy is that it is really a 
second-class power, but it tries to keep up an army and 
navy in rivalry with Germany, Russia, and France. 
Every Italian must put in three years in active service. 
Take a country about the size of Kansas, fill it up with 
an army of 300,000 men and you see soldiers in every 
direction. Immense cathedrals and palaces filled with 
valuable gems and works of art, an army of expensive 
uniforms, and a poverty-stricken people, — that is Italy. 
The tourist hurries along and shuts his eyes to the dis- 
tress as much as he can, visits the galleries and the 
churches, the ruins and the historic spots. He tries to 
see only the Italy of 2,000 years ago. He is fortunate 
if he can keep himself worked up in an ecstasy over 
the Caesars and the old masters, so that the half-clothed 
children, the broken-down women and the men work- 
ing without hope, do not leave an impression on his 
heart. I can't shut my eyes tight enough to avoid 
seeing those things and sympathizing with the poor 
Italian people who have no show. 

But here we are in Italy, not the Italy of to-day, 
but the Italy of Csesar and Cicero, Nero and Con- 
stantine, the Italy where Paul and Peter planted the 
Christian religion and where they died the death of 



GETTING INTO ITALY. 85 



martyrs ; the Italy of temples and colosseums, cathe- 
drals and catacombs, — the Italy we read about, if you 
please, and not the Italy now on the map. 



ROME AND ROMANS. 

Rome, June 29, 1905. 
There is so much in the point of view. Here are 
things which I have studied about, read about, won- 
dered about. Some of them on close inspection are 
impressive yet. Others are commonplace. And there 
are even some which are ridiculous. On approaching 
Rome I had tried to take an inventory of the things I 
most wanted to see first : The Forum, St. Peter's, the 
Appian Way, the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, the 
Tarpeian Rock, the Vatican, and the list was as long 
as I could set down. But really the words that kept 
haunting me and which were always in my mind were 
"the yellow Tiber." Like every other school-boy of 
my time, I had learned and recited "Horatius at the 
Bridge," and I wanted to see the raging torrent which 
saved Rome when Horatius held back the foe until 
the Romans had cut down the only bridge. I kept 
saying to myself : 

" Then up spake brave Horatius, 
The captain of the gate : 

' To every man upon this earth 
Death cometh soon or late; 
And how can man die better 
Than when facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers 
And the temples of his gods?' " 

Accordingly the first observation I made in Rome 
was of the Tiber. It is yellow, all right, and about as 

(86) 




THE ITALIAN NOBLEMAN OP THE STAGE, AND THE REAL THING. 



ROME AND ROMANS. 87 

wide as the Cottonwood river. It seemed impossible 
to associate that stream with the Tiber of which his- 
torians had told and poets sung. But it was the 
Tiber, all right — from another view-point. 

Now with St. Peter's it was different. I have seen 
some right nice churches in America, but of course 
they do not come up to European cathedrals. St. 
Paul's in London was disappointing, and Notre Dame 
in Paris was not up to the advance advertising. But 
when it comes to impressiveness St. Peter's at Rome 
is to my mind the greatest imaginable. It is so big and 
yet so proportioned, so grand and yet so substantial, 
so full of precious memories of martyrs and divines 
and so tastefully and magnificently decorated with pic- 
tures that tell the story of the faith it stands for. All 
the people in Hutchinson could worship in one side of 
St. Peter's, and yet there is none of that barny, bar- 
racksy look which usually goes with great size and 
capacity. The length is 232 yards, the transept is 
150 yards and the height of the nave 151 feet, the dome 
is 435 feet to the cross. But figures don't tell any- 
thing about St. Peter's. The interior is tapestry and 
painting, gold without tinsel, pictures without tawdry 
effect, and columns that add and do not detract from 
the dignity of the structure. Under the great dome is 
the tomb of Peter, the disciple who made so much trou- 
ble, but knowing his energy and power, whom Christ 
made the rock upon which the church was to be built. 



88 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Next door to St. Peter's is the Vatican, where the 
pope resides, and the first thing we saw there was the 
Sistine Chapel. Here is where my view-point differs 
from most people. I concede that the paintings in the 
Sistine Chapel are beautiful, especially in their design 
and their color. The old masters who did the work 
under the direction of Michael Angelo have never been 
equaled in their ability to make rich color. But I con- 
tend that the subject of a picture should count as well 
as the drawing and the color. When Michael Angelo 
attempted to paint God Almighty he couldn't do it. 
The color is all right and the proportions are perfect, 
but all that Michael Angelo did was to paint a man a 
little larger than Adam, and that does not come up to 
my ideal of the Divine. The fact is that neither 
Michael Angelo nor anyone else can put onto canvas 
such a subject, and therefore Michael should not have 
tried it. His fault was in his judgment of what can 
be painted. The entire effect of the remainder of the 
beautiful ceilings and walls with their paintings of 
scenes from Old and New Testament, was spoiled for 
me when I couldn't get away from that central figure, 
that failure of ability to do the impossible. 

I would like to have the support of the women-folks in 
my theory in regard to the failure of the Sistine Chapel, 
so I will add that in the picture where Michael paints 
the devil, he makes the devil half snake and the upper 
half a woman. If I remember correctly, the great 
painter was an old bachelor, — probably not one of his 
own motion. 

The paintings mix up the pagan with the Christian. 



ROME AND ROMANS. 89 



"The 1 Last Judgment" has Christ the central figure as 
judge, surrounded by apostles and saints, and the hell 
part of the painting is according to Dante, with the 
old Roman idea of the boatman Charon ferrying the 
lost across the river. In this picture Michael Angelo 
made a hit. He put the face of an enemy of his, an 
officer of the pope, on the painting of Minos, one of the 
leading devils of hell. The offending official had ob- 
jected to some of the artist's work on account of the 
nudity of the figures, and Michael has sent him down 
the ages as the face of a devil. 

But there is no call for me to describe paintings and 
statuary and cathedrals. A hasty sketch like this is 
not giving them fair treatment. You can't go any- 
where in Rome without running into something beau- 
tiful or something historic. Go down a street and 
there will be the baths of Diocletian, turn around and 
there will be the Forum, and next is the Coliseum, the 
Arch of Constantine, Trajan's forum and column, the 
Palace of Tiberius, the Stadium, and so on until you 
can't rest with the long list of things you saw and ought 
to remember, and some that you ought to have seen 
but didn't because you were just too tired to look 
around. The Forum, the Coliseum and all this kind 
of things look just like the pictures, and they are 
there,— that's all I can say about them, although the 
feeling of actually having seen and touched is one of 
a great deal of satisfaction and worth going to Rome 
to have. 



90 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

I don't know how many churches there are in Rome. 
There are eighty dedicated to the Virgin and fully as 
many to St. Peter. They are filled with great paint- 
ings and statuary. Rome is the center of the greatest 
Christian church, and for centuries the civilized world, 
or a large part of it, has sent its gifts to the temples and 
shrines. Thousands and tens of thousands of young 
men are studying here for the priesthood. The streets 
are filled with their black gowns and hats. Here and 
there along the streets and roads are shrines erected 
to patron saints. All the churches are open seven days 
in the week, and there are always people in them at 
their devotions. 

As a contrast to the power and greatness of the pres- 
ent church we went to see the catacombs, the burrows 
in the earth to which the Christians of the early cen- 
turies fled for safety, and in which they buried their 
dead. The catacombs of St. Calixtus, which we vis- 
ited, are said to contain twelve miles of underground 
passages. Along the sides and in the occasional niches 
and chapels are the places where the bodies were put. 
The passages go down thirty to forty feet and the cata- 
combs are from four to six stories downward, just as a 
building is that much aboveground. In these places 
the early Christians kept alive their faith under the ter- 
rible persecution of the emperors. Amid the tombs 
they met and worshipped in spite of imperial decree 
and certain death if captured. Rude pictures and in- 
scriptions on the walls tell part of the story which has 
made the world wonder ever since as the Roman gov- 



ROME AND ROMANS. 91 

ernment did then, at the power of the faith for which 
men and women would so live and so die. 

Coming out of the catacombs we drove along the Ap- 
pian Way, the great military road constructed over 
300 years B. C. I had expected to have a good thrill 
of enthusiasm over the Appian Way, but somehow it 
did not come. The Appian Way is an ordinary good 
country road lined with old houses, wine gardens, ruins 
and high fences. There are still a number of villas and 
palaces, but the owners are poor and the basements are 
usually rented out for stables and the upper apartments 
for tenements. Italian noblemen are generally poor, 
and if they have palaces are obliged to rent rooms and 
keep boarders. 

?¥¥ 

Another cherished hope of mine is gone. I had read 
about the beautiful Italian peasant girls and have seen 
them on the stage singing in opera and dressed in fetch- 
ing short skirts and bright-colored bodices. Italian 
girls work in the fields with the boys and then help 
their mothers with the children, and most of them look 
tired and sickly. The fetching skirts hang like loose 
wall-paper and the "bright bodice" looks as if the girl 
was wearing her mother's old corset outside her clothes. 

The largest and most numerous ruins in Rome are 
those of the public baths erected by the state and by 
the emperors. The Romans in those days were sporty, 
banqueted all night and bathed all next day to get over 
the effects. But there are no public baths now — at 



92 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

least none of consequence. And judging by the ordi- 
nary senses of sight and smell, bathing has become one 
of the lost arts with a large number of the Romans of 
to-day. 



VENICE, THE BEAUTIFUL. 

Venice, July 3, 1905. 
I suppose everybody knows about Venice, the city 
built in the water. During the sixth century the " bar- 
barians" from the north were overrunning Italy, kill- 
ing or making slaves of the people and destroying the 
cities and towns. A number of the inhabitants of 
northeast Italy fled for safety to a group of small 
islands in the shallow bay of the Adriatic sea, and there 
built up little villages which were united in a republic 
and became the city and suburbs which we call Venice. 
They naturally were a seafaring and trading people, 
and Venice was the port of commerce between the Ori- 
ent and Europe. The Crusades stimulated business, 
and Venice was the most important trading-point on 
the Mediterranean. At that time there was no Suez 
canal and no knowledge of an ocean route to Asia, and 
all commerce passed through Venice. The little re- 
public grew strong and powerful, captured and re- 
tained possessions in Italy and the islands of the Med- 
iterranean. Venice was one of the powers of Europe 
about the fifteenth century, and thought she had the 
world by the tail. But the Turks captured Constanti- 
nople, other routes to Asia were discovered about the 
time Columbus reached America, and Venice as a great 
political power and business center suffered a collapse. 
In other words, the boom in Venice busted and Venice 

(93) 



94 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

has never done much on her own account since. The 
first few hundred years the government was that of a 
republic, but about the close of the thirteenth century 
the nobles who had won leadership through trade and 
war declared their offices hereditary, and thereafter 
Venice was an aristocracy with a president called " the 
doge." During the French Revolution the French cap- 
tured Venice, and then Austria got it, and finally, in 
1868, it was united with the kingdom of Italy, where it 
belongs. 

Built on islands, crossed by canals like streets in 
other cities, without a carriage or a horse, Venice is a 
strange, and to me, an attractive place. The railroad 
runs out on a long trestle bridge. It is hardly appro- 
priate to say "landed" in a place like Venice, but we 
arrived here at ten o'clock at night. The porter for the 
hotel to which we were going took us through the sta- 
tion and put us into a gondola, and away we went, 
down back streets and under bridges, with no light ex- 
cept a few corner lamps and the stars. The Venetian 
gondoliers may be poetical, but their looks do not in- 
vite the confidence of the traveler when he intrusts 
himself to their hands for the first time and late at 
night. Little chills creep up and down your back as 
you see the gondola going straight for a corner — sure 
to hit it, but accidentally doesn't. After you get ac- 
quainted with the ways of the city you learn to trust 
the gondolier, but the first time, late at night, you have 
your doubts. You may forget just how you arrived 
in other cities, but not in Venice. 



VENICE, THE BEAUTIFUL. 95 

The Grand canal, the main street in Venice, is about 
seventy-five yards wide and averages sixteen feet deep. 
The paving question does not bother the cit}^ council 
in Venice. Most of their canal streets are only twelve 
to thirty feet in width. There are also a few real streets 
four to ten feet wide, on the inside of the blocks formed 
by the canals, and the total result is a labyrinth of al- 
leys and canals which are impossible for a stranger to 
get head or tail of. Along the Grand canal and many 
others the fine houses of the old prosperous times loom 
up straight from the water six or seven stories. For 
example, the front of our hotel, on the Grand canal, 
has absolutely no sidewalk, only marble steps leading 
to the water, up which the tide rises about two and a 
half feet twice a day. The architecture of Venice is 
Oriental, and is refreshing after the Roman and Greek 
styles everywhere else in Italy. The churches and pub- 
lic buildings, mostly constructed between the eleventh 
and fifteenth centuries, have round Moorish towers and 
are decorated with gold and colors and have very ornate 
pillars and fagades. That makes Venice a beautiful 
city, and so it is, — if you don't go into the little back 
alleys where you see the undecorated side. Of the 
125,000 people one-fourth have no means of support 
except charity. In the last few years Venice has re- 
vived the glass industry and has developed the lace- 
making, and times are better than they were. But 
just think of a people where one-fourth have no chance 
to earn their living! We visited one of the big lace- 
making suburbs on the island of Burano. The lace, 
which Mrs. Morgan says is "b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l" and over 



96 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

which all good women rave, is made by girls and wo- 
men who sit all day on straight-back chairs and labor 
over the pillow, — and get about twenty-five cents a day 
wages. We visited the glass-blowers at Murano, the 
finest in the world, and skilled workmen get up to two 
dollars a day- for a dexterity and ability which would 
easily command three or four times that amount in 
America. The people live mostly on fish and vege- 
tables, are very poor and apparently very happy. 
They are the best-looking folks I have seen in Italy, and 
evidently enjoy the improvident life which would drive 
an American to strong drink, or if he were in Italy would 
drive him to drink the water. 

The center of Venice is "the Piazza of St. Mark/' a 
square about two hundred yards long and nearly half 
as wide, paved with marble and inclosed by fine build- 
ings, including the great Church of St. Mark, the old 
palace of the doge, the present royal palace, and a glit- 
tering array of shops. I should say there were ten 
thousand beautiful shops in Venice selling lace, glass, 
art works, beads, curios, pictures, etc. Of course there 
are not that many, but there seem to be. There is prac- 
tically nothing else of importance. Venice is a good 
deal like the world's fair grounds, all glitter and glass, 
Oriental towers and marble palaces, beautiful bridges 
and lagoons, and everybody trying to separate the 
stranger from his money. 

Venice is a night town. In the evening the canals 
are filled with gondolas and everybody is out for a good 



VENICE, THE BEAUTIFUL. 97 

time. Regular musical clubs drift along with the sweet- 
est Italian opera rendered with real ability , and arias 
and Italian serenades and love songs until you think the 
world is nothing but lights glancing on the water, drift- 
ing gondolas, song and gladness. Every few minutes 
one of the singers will pass the hat and you contribute 
two or three cents and remember you are still on earth. 
We sit at our hotel and watch the gay crowd in the pass- 
ing gondolas, or for a few cents get into one, lean back 
on the easy cushions, smoke a two-cent cigar, and for- 
get all about these poor people with their poverty and 
their fleas. They have forgotten them themselves. 

The patron saint of Venice is St. Mark. In the early 
days, say a thousand years ago and more, some doge 
dreamed that Venice would never prosper until the 
bones of St. Mark were brought here for burial. The 
bones happened to be in Asia or Africa, and for years 
the Venetians put in their time righting the Turks and 
trying to capture the relics. Finally the bright idea 
struck them that it would be easier to steal St. Mark's 
bones than capture them by battle, and an enterpris- 
ing Venetian merchant did the job. The remains of 
St. Mark were brought to Venice and a beautiful cathe- 
dral with Oriental towers and rich colors built above 
them. The doge's dream was no fake, for after that 
Venice prospered greatly. Tradition says that St. 
Mark used to have a winged lion for a companion, and 
accordingly the winged lion is the Venetian emblem. 
The cathedral and the public buildings are full of Ori- 
ental works of art captured or stolen from the Turks 



A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 



during the years of the Crusades when Venice was a 
stronghold of Christendom. Venetian painters have 
done St. Mark and the lion in every conceivable place, 
and wherever you go you see his kindly face, the quill 
pen he used in writing, and the playful winged lion. 
The only horses in the city are of bronze, and decorate 
the facade of St. Mark's cathedral. Except for these 
rather poor imitations I suppose nine-tenths of the 
people of Venice never saw a horse. Incidentally I will 
add that it is a great advantage to live in a city where 
you are not awakened at daylight by the rumble of 
wagons and carts over stone-paved streets. 

The government of Venice during the Middle Ages 
was something fierce. Nominally a republic, it was 
controlled by the nobles, who had a general assembly, 
which selected a senate of seventy-five, of which there 
was an inner council of ten and a secret tribunal of 
three, who met masked and did not know each other's 
identity. If you lived in Venice at that time and had 
an enemy you wanted to do away with, you would drop 
a letter accusing him of treason into the letter-box 
shaped like a lion's head in the counter outside the room 
of the council of three. It was a pretty sure thing that 
he would not be heard from again. Of course you 
would have to do this first, for your enemy might be 
dropping in a letter while you were thinking about it. 

We went through the rooms of the various councils 
down the secret stairway and over the "Bridge of 
Sighs," which connected the palace with the prison 
across the canal street. This was the way the prison- 



VENICE, THE BEAUTIFUL. 99 

ers were brought for trial, and if they went back it was 
to torture and death. The jails in those times were 
not built for health or sanitary purposes, and were 
evidently not examined by the county commissioners. 
The dungeons are dark and damp, and the guide tells 
you some awful stories of the rack, the thumbscrew 
and the block. You can imagine the " good old days " 
and shudder as you think of the cruelty and the crime. 
Paraphrasing Byron, who wrote some lines on the 
subject : 

I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
Visions of Old from those deep dungeons rise, — 
The shrieks of pain, the terrifying cries, 
Then I reflect : Perhaps it's mostly lies. 



SOME THINGS ON ART. 

Venice, Italy, July 3, 1905. 
Because I have not been writing much to The News 
on the subject of art, it must not be supposed that I am 
omitting the regular work of every tourist. Nor do I 
want it presupposed that I don't know enough about 
art to tell the difference between a renaissance and a 
vermicelli. If industry and a desire to thoroughly 
do the job so it will not have to be done a second time 
will count for anything, I have been an arduous lover 
of art in all its forms since I passed the custom-house 
on the Italian border. Everybody knows that the 
center of art is Italy and that anything that isn't old 
and Italian is second class. When you come to Italy 
you expect to see the heights of the artistic and you are 
expected to have fits of ecstasy over the said heights. 
I have had 'em every time the guidebook told me to. 
I have endeavored in every way to show that a plain, 
common citizen of Kansas knew what to do when 
brought face to face with Raphael, Titian, Michael 
Angelo and the other gentlemen since whose death the 
world has never really seen much in art. According 
to my pedometer I have traveled through 171 miles 
of cathedrals, 56 miles of public buildings and 85 
miles of art galleries — all in ten days. Some people 
may think my pedometer is too rapid, but I know 
it is too slow\ You know a good bird dog learns never 

(100) 



SOME THINGS ON ART. 101 

to "set" for anything but a game bird. And it is well 
established that people with a certain kind of rheu- 
matism can tell the approaching changes in the weather 
by the twinges in their joints. And it is a fact that even 
when I do not know there is a cathedral or an art gal- 
lery within a hundred miles , let me approach one ac- 
cidentally and my feet will begin to ache. Then I 
know what is before me and I try to do my duty. If 
the work of absorbing Italian art should prove too 
much for me, the words could be as appropriately put 
on my tombstone as they were over the early citizen 
of Dodge who died with a dozen bullets in his body and 
a half-dozen enemies lying on the floor: 



HERE LIES BILL. 

HE DONE HIS DAMDEST. 

ANGELS COULD DO 

NO MORE. 



There are three places where you always find art in 
Italy: First and foremost, the churches; second, the 
public buildings ; third, the art galleries and museums. 
The churches come first, because the Catholic Church 
has always been the support and promoter of art. For 
centuries it was the only strong power that encouraged 
artists. It had the tasteful men of the age and it had 
the money. The great artists both in painting and 
sculpture would have had no opportunity and their 
works would have been destroyed if it had not been for 
the church. In return, the artists took the subjects 



102 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

of religion and portrayed them most beautifully and 
effectively. There is hardly a church in Italy which 
does not have paintings by some of those old painters 
which would be worth a fortune now if they were for sale. 
The Catholic faith especially appeals to the artistic 
sense, and the history of the church furnished a bound- 
less field of subjects. Walls and ceilings of churches are 
covered with magnificent pictures, the exteriors are 
decorated with sculpture, and the architecture of the 
buildings is brilliant and effective. To see paintings, 
statues or architecture in Italy you first go to the 
churches, and there you see the greatest and best. 

After the churches the art treasures and galleries 
are found in the public buildings, and there we get 
what is left of the art of Greece and Rome, together 
with much of a later time. The old pagan mythology 
furnished most of the ancient art, together with a few 
attempts at transferring abstract ideas into concrete 
form. Of course I don't want to set up as an art 
critic — I have trouble enough without that. But ac- 
cording to the way I was raised, a large per cent, of 
ancient sculpture isn't fit to be exhibited to young 
folks — or to old men. Probably the times were dif- 
ferent and fashions in art were acute, but the Grecian 
and Roman sculptors paid no attention to the rules of 
common decency as generally understood in this gen- 
eration. While doing my duty in the art galleries I 
have actually blushed so much that it grew noticeable 
to the other art critics, and I fear that I lost standing 
with them. Of course I am not a regular critic, but I 
know a few things, and this is one of them. 



SOME THINGS ON ART. 103 

Another objection I have to the old masters is that 
they never considered any subject too big for them. 
I have written something of this when I kicked on 
Michael Angelo attempting to make a picture of God 
Almighty. There is too much of that kind of business 
in Italian art. And another thing is that they couldn't 
paint good animals. Some of the pictures by the great 
masters have horses or lions in them, and I believe 
even the horses would laugh at their own appear- 
ance. 

Aside from these unimportant objections and a tri- 
fling criticism of a great deal of ignorance about draw- 
ing and the fitness of things, the "old masters," by 
which is meant the great painters from about 1400 to 
1600, are certainly worthy of their reputation. Every- 
body I met knew more about art than I did — so they 
thought — and everyone said : " What wonderful color. " 
The old masters certainly did know how to mix paints 
so as to make the most beautiful and most lasting 
colors. I think Titian's red-headed girls are the pret- 
tiest reds I have ever seen. Raphael's paintings can- 
not be criticized by me — their feeling and their exe- 
cution will make a cynical Kansan stand and admire. 
Michael Angelo I did not take to so well as I did Titian 
and Raphael, but he did a lot of work, and he, too, 
had the ability to make his pictures like life. The other 
great painters of Italy in these two centuries of the 
renaissance have not been equaled in any period since, 
and in spite of the fact that the experience of one gen- 
eration ought to help the next, I do not believe that the 
modern Italian painters, or the Englishmen and Amer- 



104 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

icans who go to Italy and copy, can come within sev- 
eral blocks of equaling the work of the "old masters." 
There is one more objection I have to the "old mas- 
ters/' and I would like to tell it to their faces. They 
had the habit of taking a great subject and making it 
a means of flattery for wealthy patrons. For exam- 
ple, a picture of Christ or the Virgin sitting and talking 
confidentially with some old scamp of a Medici. Of 
course I don't blame the old artists. The Medici were 
a lot of thugs, thieves, highwaymen, murderers, and 
lovers of art. They put up handsomely for the great 
masters, and undoubtedly assisted much in promoting 
art at a time when the princes and nobility of Italy 
were not respectable according to our standard. This 
flattery by the old masters may have been necessary 
to make a living, but I don't think it is Art. 

' I had one objection which has been overruled on the 
ground that it was simply because my apprenticeship 
in art had been too short. Every artist painted a 
"Madonna." Each had a different ideal or model. 
Mary was a Jewess. But the Italian artists nearly all 
ran in pictures of Italians, and each had a different 
style. It makes a confusing aggregation. I think I 
have seen a thousand Madonnas, five hundred Magda- 
lens, and from one to three hundred of each of the 
saints. There is a sameness of subject and a variance 
in execution which makes me a little nervous. I 
haven't worked at the art business as long as I should, 
and therefore I may be too hasty in my judgment, 



SOME THINGS ON ART. 105 

although I am fairly perspiring art at every pore and the 
climate of Italy in the latter part of June and the first 
of July has nearly as much cause for perspiration as 
the climate of Kansas. 



AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO 
FORTH. 

Menagio, Italy, July 5, 1905. 
At an early hour yesterday morning 7 July 4, we left 
the hotel in Venice in a gondola, and defiantly waving in 
the air was an American flag which I carried as proudly 
and as exuberantly as a ten-year-old boy would at a 
picnic in Kansas. We met several Americans at the 
station, and they waved and cheered "Old Glory." 
We met all kinds of Italians, who looked as amused 
and curious as a lot of Americans would at an Italian 
carrying a green, white and red banner down the 
streets of Hutchinson. I flaunted the stars and stripes 
in the faces of the Italian policemen, and they seemed 
to enjoy it. Several people tried to find out from me 
what it all meant, and in spite of the fact that I told 
them in good English that this was the Fourth of July, 
the anniversary of independence, they shook their 
heads and did not " comprehendo. " The weather was 
very hot and very dry, the train was dusty, and the 
conditions as near ideal for a successful Fourth of July 
celebration as could be imagined. The American flag 
that day floated in the Italian breeze from Venice to 
Milan and then to Lake Como. The inability to make 
the Dagoes understand what I meant was embarrassing 
at times, and I longed vainly for a pack of firecrackers 
or a few good torpedoes. The conductor on the train 
was greatly interested. We talked in sign language 

(106) 



AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO FORTH. 107 

and all the Italian I knew and all the English he knew, 
but to no effect. Finally I said the word "liberty/' 
and as the Italian word is about the same, he caught 
on and I could tell he was approving. "Vive 'lAmer- 
ica!" I cried, and he took off his hat and said it after 
me and smiled agreement to the remarks I was making 
on what the old flag meant. I gave him a big tip, 
10 cents, — 5 cents for hurrahing for America and 5 
cents for listening to my speech. 

To-night we are out of the heat of the fertile plains 
of Lombardy and are in a delightful cool place on the 
shore of Lake Como, the prettiest and pleasantest 
place I have seen since we left Killarney. The last 
part of the day the flag waved over Como, Bellagio, 
Cernobio, Nesso, Colomo, Bellano, and all the other 
"o's" that make the list of Italian towns look like the 
roster of an Irish Fenian society, only the o is at the 
wrong end of the names. 

Speaking of "tipping" the conductor reminds me of 
the tipping system in Italy, which is a subject of the 
greatest importance to the traveler. I think I have 
seen only one man in Italy who did not hold out his 
hand, and that was an armless beggar at the Milan 
station who had a tin cup in which you were expected 
to deposit. The tipping custom is general in Europe, 
but it reaches its greatest development in Italy. 
Everybody you meet is so courteous and polite, willing 
to show you or tell you or take you, but always ex- 
pecting something. You tip the conductor, the porter, 
the hotel manager, the chambermaid, the "man cham- 



108 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

bermaid," the elevator boy, the waiter, the head waiter, 
the clerk, the interpreter, the attendants, the driver, 
the man who opens the door, the church janitor, the 
policeman, and everybody you ask a question or who 
is there to answer if you do ask, and then you tip a few 
more just because they expect it. This looks like an 
alarming expenditure of money. But as a matter of 
fact the total amount of tips is not more than is ex- 
pected at a big hotel in New York. And when you 
tip the waiter at the restaurant he does not keep it, 
but all tips go into a common fund that is divided and 
is the wages the waiters receive in most cases. 

Here is a schedule of "tips/' which, after consider- 
able study and comparison with that of others, I have 
figured as about right : 

Baggageman, 2 cents. 

Elevator boy, 2 cents. 

Chambermaid, 3 cents. 

Man chambermaid, 3 cents. 

Waiter, per day, 5 cents. 

Head waiter, 10 cents. 

Manager of hotel, 20 cents. 

Miscellaneous men and boys, each 1 cent. 

Railroad conductor, 5 cents. 

Policeman, 2 cents. 

Driver, 2 cents. 

Italian nobleman, 3 cents. 

Italian merchant, 2 cents. 

Clerk in store, 1 cent. 

Ordinary civility, 1 cent. 

I haven't met the king or queen, but I estimate that 
if I did and asked a favor they would look like about 
30 cents. 

The Italian money is like the French money, based 
on a unit which is equivalent to 20 cents. So when 



AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO FORTH. 109 

you give a man 10 cents you give him a half -lire or 
half-franc. The lire is divided into 100 centimes, and 
when you give a man 2 cents you hand him a great big 
copper coin with "ten centimes" on it. This small 
unit of measurement causes an American a peculiar 
sensation. For example, I had to buy a shirt in Ven- 
ice and it was marked 5.50. That looked like a big 
price for a shirt, but reduced to American currency 
it was only $1.10. I bought some of the long Italian 
cigars which look like stogies and have straws down 
the center so they will draw. They were 30 centimes 
each — only 6 cents American. For a carriage and 
driver to go anywhere in Rome, carrying Mrs. Morgan 
and myself and a lot of baggage, it was 1.00, twenty 
American cents. When two Americans can ride a 
couple of miles in a comfortable victoria for 20 cents 
they don't walk much, and they feel as if they were 
beating somebody and are perfectly willing to "tip" 
the driver an extra 2 cents. So when you are "do- 
ing" Italy and get used to the custom, you do not mind 
carrying a pound or so of copper coins and distributing 
them whenever you speak to a native. 

The effect of this custom on the people must be very 
pernicious. And it takes away the charm of recog- 
nizing courtesy and hospitality as a national trait when 
you remember that you pay for it and it is cheap. 

I wrote from Paris that the government of France 
has the monopoly of the tobacco business. In Italy 
the government has the monopoly of tobacco and salt, 
the two great necessities. It looks funny to go along 



110 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

the street and see the little government shops with the 
sign in Italian, "Tobacco and Salt." The Italian gov- 
ernment doesn't sell good tobacco or good salt. The 
best cigars are from the island of Luzon, manufactured 
into alleged cigars in the government factories in Italy. 
The salt is heavy and coarse, something like old-style 
yellow-brown sugar. If you don't like the tobacco or 
the salt you can go without, for the government allows 
no competitor who might do better. 

I have learned a little Italian, not so much but I can 
forget it when I cross the line. And that leads me to 
tell of a little experience with a moral. I had been 
so annoyed by the numerous beggars and vendors of 
trinkets that I asked a hotel porter who knew some 
English what I should say in Italian to tell them to go 
away. He told me something that sounded like " Muff a 
tora." Accordingly I went around for a couple of days 
saying "MufTa tora" to all that bothered me. Then 
a friend who knew a little more Italian happened to 
hear me and suggested that my language was too strong. 
The words were about what in America is meant by 
" Go-to-hell. " And there I had been going around 
St. Peter's, St. Paul, and all the churches and art gal- 
leries in Rome, saying to half the people who ap- 
proached me, "Go-to-hell," "Go-to-hell." A little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing. 

9 ¥ ^ 

Of course Americans stop at the best hotels, and 
they are about the same everywhere, being based on 



AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO FORTH. Ill 

the French model. They are from one- third to one- 
half cheaper than the best hotels in American cities. 
We are supposed to get three meals a day : First, rolls 
and coffee; second, about 12 o'clock, what is really a 
late breakfast but is called " dejeuner " and has three 
to five courses : eggs (always — generally omelet) , mac- 
aroni, a cutlet or chop with potatoes, a roast meat, 
cheese, and fruit. No coffee or tea or anything to drink 
except water, which they say is bad and unhealthful. 
Dinner at 7 o'clock and a good meal : Soup, fish, cutlet 
or chop with macaroni, roast, vegetables, roast chicken 
and salad, cheese, small cakes, and fruit. No coffee 
or tea. If you want coffee after dinner you have it 
served in the lounging-room or out-of-doors, and it is 
extra, Nobody but Americans drink water, and they 
do not use enough to hurt. When you enter the hotel 
you are received by the "hall porter," really the man- 
ager, who bows and takes you or sends you to a room. 
After a while he sends up for your name and nationality, 
but that is for the police. There is no hotel register. 
When you pay your bill and are leaving the porter 
rings a bell and everybody from proprietor to cham- 
bermaid appears to say "good-by," speed the parting 
guest and receive the parting tips. At first your royal 
reception and leave-taking makes quite an impression 
and you feel "set up," but after a while it gets to be a 
bore and you try to escape it but can't. The cooking 
and service are first-class, better than in America. 
There is one kind of dishes I steer clear of, those labeled 
on the bill of fare, "a la Americaine. " They are like 
those served in Hutchinson, "a la Italia," or "a la 



112 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Francois," which means that they are probably spoiled 
by the cook trying to do something he does not under- 
stand. 

Of course in the small Italian hotels the cooking is 
different, but they tell me it is good. The restaurants 
where the poorer people eat are full of garlicky smells 
which can be heard for a block. The staple articles of 
food for Italians are soup, macaroni and vegetables, 
all flavored with garlic. The ordinary Italian does 
not eat meat. There are probably several reasons 
why, but the first one is that he has not the price, 
and that is enough. When a man is working for 30 
cents a day he is a stranger to roast beef, for meat is as 
high as it is in America. 

I haven't seen a real clothing store in Italy. There 
are two classes of Italians only : The rich, who have a 
tailor, and the poor, who put the goods together them- 
selves. Again I want to repeat what I have said be- 
fore: The things that are cheap in Europe are those 
in which labor is the principal factor. When it comes 
to hiring a man to do work, you name your price. 
That is why carriage-driving, servants, clothes-making, 
the building trades and labor of every kind from lace- 
makers to railroad engineers, are so low. 

The Italian shopkeepers have a well-deserved repu- 
tation as bargainers. Go into a shop, ask a price, and 
very likely the proprietor or clerk will say "So much: 
what will you give?" Americans have a reputation 



AN ITALIAN FOURTH AND SO FORTH. 113 

of being "easy," and so they usually start us with a 
price of "6 francs/' when they will come down to one 
or two rather than lose a sale. When you get through 
you never know just how much you have been beaten 
— you only know you have been. Some stores adver- 
tise "fixed prices/' but they are unfixed if necessary. 
The process of "shopping" thus has another and de- 
licious feature for the American "shopper.'' 

I have found the Italians honest. We hardly ever 
lock our room. I am always leaving the umbrella, 
but somebody always finds it and brings it to me, and 
I can't say that much for Americans. The hackmen 
do not overcharge, or at least not near as much as in 
Chicago or New York. I think a stranger is better 
treated in Rome than in Kansas City. But then comes 
the suspicious thought — we pay for it. 

Previous to this trip I had often heard people talk 
about the fleas in Italy, and had thought it was very 
funny. It is no joke. At first I was much amused 
when I would see a well-dressed lady stop suddenly 
on the street, elevate her skirt and go hunting. I now 
consider it a perfectly justifiable and proper action. If 
there is a game law in Italy with a closed season on 
fleas it is not at this time of the year. I have seen the 
anxious, heart-stricken look on the faces of the martyrs 
and saints as painted by the old masters, and I know 
now where they got their models, for I have seen the 
man and the woman conscious of the march of the flea 

-8 



114 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

along the small of the back or in some other unreach- 
able place, and have seen the haunted, hunted look on 
the face as conjecture what the flea would do next 
changed into realization. The Italian flea works a 
good deal like the American mosquito, only he makes 
no music and you can only tell where he is by sad 
experience. He can dodge better than some politi- 
cians and he can get in his work early and often. I 
am growing accustomed to the sensation myself, but 
I do not think I shall ever enjoy it. The Bible says the 
wicked flee when no man pursueth, but in Italy the 
wicked flea is improving each minute whether anyone 
pursueth or not. Mingled with art and old masters, 
lagoons, and gondolas, cathedrals and Caesars, blue 
sky and green fields, will always be my recollection of 
the flea that never takes a siesta and to whom the poets 
have never done justice. 



SWITZERLAND. 



ACROSS THE ALPS. 

Brieg, Switzerland, July 7, 1905. 
"Beyond the Alps lies Italy" with all of its art and 
history and fleas. After a day on Lake Lugano and 
Lake Maggiore, where the two countries of Italy and 
Switzerland meet, and where the customs officers ex- 
amined our baggage three times in the course of a trip 
around the water, we crossed the Alps, among which 
we had been for two days, and are now in the oldest 
republic on earth, Switzerland. We came over the 
Simplon Pass in a stage-coach and not through a tun- 
nel, as we could have done. The Simplon Pass is his- 
toric and picturesque. As soon as the tunnel is com- 
pleted, which has been seven years in building, the 
railroad train will rush through the mountains and the 
stage-coach will be an old fogy luxury. But the way to 
go over the Alps for pleasure and observation is not to 
take a tunnel train, but ride over on the outside of a 
coach with five horses and see the panorama as you 
pass by. After a fortnight spent among the great 
works of man, cathedrals, coliseums and galleries, one 
day was enough in the Simplon to prove that Nature 
is still ahead. The great amphitheatres of the moun- 
tains, the magnificent stage-settings of forest and peak, 
left the coliseum and the forum far behind. The 
changing hues of the slopes, now gradual and now 
precipitate, sometimes bare and sometimes covered 

(117) 



118 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

with pasture and vineyard or forest; were in colors 
which even the old masters could not equal. It was an 
all-day drive over a fine road, through narrow gulches, 
alongside rushing rivers, under waterfalls of melted 
snow, finally through the snow itself, and then down, 
almost sliding, with the coach-wheels locked so they 
were like runners, into the quaint little town of Brieg. 

The road over the Simplon was built by Napoleon. 
All over the map of Europe you will see such monu- 
ments to the name of the great emperor. I do not 
give Napoleon much credit for the job, as it was a mili- 
tary necessity to him. He had to keep an army in 
Italy and always be on the lookout for his enemies 
there, so he ordered the Simplon Pass, up to the time 
only a trail, to be provided with a macadamized road, 
and it was done. I have seen so many of such roads 
in Europe that I would be willing to support Napoleon 
for road overseer or street commissioner any time. 
The road was completed in 1807, and the tunnel under 
the Pass will be finished in 1906. It is sixteen miles 
long, large enough for a double track, and has been 
constructed from both ends at the same time. To my 
mind it is a great engineering feat to start two small 
holes in a mountain, sixteen miles apart, and figure so 
accurately that those holes will meet some place in the 
center over a mile from the daylight on top. I suppose 
it looks easy to the engineer who knows how, but it is 
miraculous to me.ff A good many lives have been lost 
and a lot of money spent on this tunnel, but those are 
the sacrifices the world demands before it will move on. 



ACROSS THE ALPS. 119 



The road over the Pass is forty-five miles long. 
Soon after starting, all agriculture disappeared, except 
vineyards and pasture. The vineyards continued al- 
most up to the snow. Wherever there was enough 
ground there were vines, and in many places the moun- 
tain-side was terraced and in the made land the vines 
were growing profusely. Literally speaking, there are 
mountains of vineyards in northern Italy and in Switz- 
erland. 

Cattle-raising in the Alps is done in small herds and 
is mostly on the Swiss side. The stock looks smooth 
and fine. Along with a drove of cows are always a 
few goats. In the early summer the herdsmen drive 
the animals up the paths and trails to the little patches 
of rich pasture, where they feed until fall, neither man 
nor beast coming down until driven by the cold. I 
saw cattle pasturing on the mountain-side where it was 
so steep it seemed they must have feet like flies or they 
would tumble down. Of course the animals inherit 
the mountain knowledge, and I suppose they don't 
know there is such a thing as a level meadow. Here 
and there men and women would be cutting grass with 
a scythe, spreading the hay out to dry, and then ac- 
tually rolling it down the mountain-side. Like all 
people who live in mountainous countries, the Swiss 
herdsmen along the Simplon looked intelligent, cheer- 
ful and poor. 

And that brings me to another broken idol. I had 
always heard of a Swiss "chalet," and had supposed 



120 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

it was an artistic, smart-looking house perched up on 
a peak for everybody to see. A real Swiss chalet is a 
half dugout in a valley, built of stone and whitewashed 
once, in which the family lives upstairs and the cattle 
spend the winter in the basement, never going out 
until the springtime comes. Now I can see the econ- 
omy, the advantages and the necessity of a Swiss 
"chalet," but I can't see anything beautiful or poetic, 
for such qualities are not present. I had the same 
experience with an Italian "villa," which I found by 
observation was usually a plain-appearing stone house 
built around a court, inhabited by Italians, goats and 
chickens, and principally remembered by the noisome 
odor. 

I have done some touring in the Rocky Mountains, 
and I was curious to see what difference there would 
be between the Rockies and the Alps, — both having 
peaks of about the same height, and each forming the 
backbone of a continent. The Alps have more snow 
than the Rockies. All of the peaks are snow-covered 
and the gulches of snow run far down the mountain- 
side here in July. Only an occasional peak in Colo- 
rado has snow, and then only a little, not enough to 
call it "snow-covered." To my mind the Rockies are 
more grandly picturesque. The sides of the Alps are 
cultivated and covered with vines, dotted with pasture 
and cattle nearly up to the timber-line. The Rockies 
are still as nature left them, more stern and desolate, 
awe-inspiring and effective. The Alps do not look 
like the Rockies, except in height and steepness. The 



ACROSS THE ALPS. 121 

foliage of the trees is not the same, and the Alps have a 
tamer appearance than the American range. A town 
in the Rockies is out of harmony with the scenery. 
A village in the Alps adds to the beauty. Perhaps I 
do not make myself clear, but there is a great difference, 
and I think the Rockies are far ahead from a mountain 
standpoint. 

Switzerland has no language of its own. The Swiss 
have four distinct languages, and the people of one 
part of the country do not understand the other. In 
some of the cantons (corresponding to our states) the 
language is French, in some German, in some Italian, 
and in some a composite speech based on the Latin 
and called "the Romance language." Remember, this 
is a country of about the same area (15,000 miles) as 
the Seventh Congressional district of Kansas, but also 
remember it is cut up by the mountains into natural 
divisions which are hard to overcome. I am getting 
used to hearing one language in one town and another 
in the next across an imaginary line. But four kinds 
of talk within a little country like Switzerland is going 
to be hard to contend with. 

Right at the top of the Simplon Pass among the 
snows that never entirely melt is a "hospice," main- 
tained for generations by an order of monks and de- 
voted to taking care of poor travelers or relieving 
those in distress or who lose their way. On every 
pass between Switzerland and Italy there is such a 
hospice. The monks have the great St. Bernard 



122 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

dogs (named from the St. Bernard Pass, a little dis- 
tance away), and when the snows get deep the dogs 
do much of the work of rescue. I had heard of these 
great institutions since boyhood, and wondered if 
they would turn out badly when actually seen. But 
they are all right, and their good work has not been 
exaggerated in the thrilling stories in which they have 
figured. 

There are many very large and very picturesque 
waterfalls, many more than in the Rockies. The 
constantly melting snow keeps them running, and it 
is not uncommon to see the water tumbling or jump- 
ing down a sheer descent of two hundred to five hun- 
dred feet. I would like to take a few waterfalls of 
that kind back to Kansas and put them up in the 
sand-hills. I offered an Italian gentleman on the 
coach who spoke some English to trade him 160 acres 
of western Kansas land for a good first-class water- 
fall. Almost fifteen minutes after I made the proposi- 
tion he laughed. It doesn't do any good to be funny 
with people who don't know your language. 



GENEVA AND CHILLON. 

Geneva, July 9, 1905. 
This little city, now containing nearly 100,000 in- 
habitants, has been a storm-center in Europe for 
2000 years. Caesar mentions it, and during the early 
centuries when Rome was conquering and governing 
most of the known world, Geneva was an important 
place, both from a strategic standpoint as a gate to 
Helvetia and as a prosperous and loyal town. It 
was either the capital of the country or a ruling city 
during all of the Dark and Medieval ages, and was 
one of the first where people learned popular sover- 
eignty and applied it to the detriment of the reigning 
king or duke. By playing one side against another 
in the struggle for sovereignty the popular leaders 
fought for freedom of conscience, and about the year 
1500 secured practical independence. Then the Ref- 
ormation commenced, and Calvin fled from Paris 
to Geneva. The people there were naturally " agin the 
government," and they took up Calvin's doctrine, 
and during the years of fighting over religion Geneva 
was the center from which Protestantism drew most 
of its leadership and inspiration. They fought for 
freedom of conscience and worship, and if anybody 
disagreed with them they killed him promptly to 
convince him of his error. Calvin ruled Geneva dur- 
ing his life, and after his death his cause went march- 
cm) 



124 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

ing on. During the last century Geneva has made 
•a reputation for manufacturing watches, jewelry and 
musical instruments. It is only fair to say that the 
best Geneva watches are now made in America. The 
work here is nearly all done by hand in the home of 
the workman, and the watchmakers of Geneva have 
had a hard time competing with Yankee machinery 
and ingenuity. 

9 9 9 

The surroundings of Geneva are peaceful and beauti- 
ful. The big lake of blue water comes to an end at 
the Geneva quay and rushes out into the world as 
the river Rhone, clear and sparkling. Mont Blanc, a 
quiet old stager of a mountain, whose head is always 
covered with snow, looks over the city like a stately 
sentinel at his post. Mountains rise all around the 
lake and are covered with vineyards, almost the only 
product of the soil, stretching far up the heights con- 
necting the blue of the lake with the blue of the sky 
and the snowy peaks and white clouds which watch 
over them. Amid such surroundings we had decided 
to rest a few days from our travel, and I found it the 
best place in the world just to sit in the hotel garden 
from which the lake, Mont Blanc and the entire pic- 
ture are visible, and just loaf and loaf and loaf. 

The great amusement of tourists who come to 
Switzerland is mountain-climbing. I have learned 
the game. Men and women come in at night recount- 
ing the wonderful feats they have accomplished and 
the dangers they have escaped. Everybody carries 




THE ALPINE HUNTER OP TO-DAY. 



GENEVA AND CHILLON. 125 

an "alpenstock/' which is a sharp-pointed cane with 
a chamois handle, and whenever he climbs a peak he 
has a ring burned around the stick, and shows it as 
proudly as the Indian once did the notches which meant 
deaths of enemies. I am a little skeptical, and listen 
to the climbing stories as I do to fish stories at home. 
It is too much like golf where you keep your own 
count. Perhaps I shall yield to the demands of envi- 
ronment enough to get me an alpenstock and have a 
few rings burned in it so I can have a few chips in the 
game, as it were. The men run to knickerbockers, 
wear feathers in their hats and carry packs on their 
shoulders. The women wear short skirts which don't 
hang well and big shoes with nails in the soles — I am 
speaking now of people who do the thing right, and 
not those who sit on the porch and loaf. 
¥¥¥ 
The Swiss themselves are degenerating from the 
simple-hearted people they were. They have fallen 
before the temptations of the tourists. They see the 
American and the Englishman with lots of money to 
spend, and they find it easier to separate the stranger 
from bis cash than they do to hunt chamois and herd 
cattle. It is a cause of much regret to the intelligent 
Swiss that this is so, but I do not notice the intelligent 
mourners going out into the mountains and setting 
an example of industry. They sell the jewelry, the 
souvenirs, the milk and the wine at advanced prices, 
and they have the greatest number of hotels and 
boarding-houses of any country on earth. If you 
enjoy handsome little shops with trinkets and gew- 



126 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

gaws, jewelry and picture-cards, carved wood and 
imitation stones, as I do," you would thoroughly en- 
joy wandering through Geneva. The Geneva arti- 
san will take a chair-leg and make a musical instru- 
ment. Sit down on a sofa and you will be startled 
to hear a piece of Wagner's played by the concealed 
music-box. 

The language spoken in Geneva is French. I do 
not think it is good French, for the people here do not 
understand the French with the fine Parisian accent 
I brought from Paris. But a large proportion of the 
people understand English. I am of the opinion that 
in spite of the fact that French is still the international 
language in Europe, the one you can use with educated 
people nearly anywhere, the English -American is 
the coming language. Very few people in Europe 
travel. The Germans do so more than others, but 
the French seldom do, the Italians rarely, and the 
Spanish and the Russians practically never. The 
English come to the continent in great numbers, and 
the Americans are in droves. In a place like Geneva 
in the principal shops and on the promenades you 
would say that fully half the people were English- 
speaking. In order to take care of these profitable 
guests the Swiss and others are learning enough of 
the language to sell them cheap goods at high prices, 
and they will learn more. It is not an uncommon 
experience to go into a store and after laboriously 
constructing a question in alleged French to get an 
answer in very fair English. 



GENEVA AND CHILLON. 127 

I am told that up to a few years ago the American 
traveler was regarded with a little contempt by the 
people of continental Europe, and considered as only 
so much soil from which to gather wealth. But Ameri- 
cans of experience tell me that since the war with 
Spain all this has changed. As for myself, these 
Europeans have always spoken in the friendliest way 
of America, even when they did not know there were 
any Yankees around. The theory that we were only 
a commercial people and would not fight (the world 
loves a fighter) was disproven so thoroughly that they 
have rather gone to the other extreme, and Ameri- 
cans are now very popular as Americans and not 
merely for their money Europe also has the highest 
opinion of McKinley and Roosevelt. With a great 
deal of pride in my heart I read a leading editorial 
in the London Times saying that Roosevelt's letter 
to Russia and Japan urging peace was one of the 
greatest of state papers. The Times added that it 
was "straightforward, frank and clear — the Ameri- 
can idea of diplomacy." All of Europe now regards 
America as a great and friendly power, and an Ameri- 
can swells up considerably more over his country 
when he is in other nations than he does at home, 
where he is apt to get fussy and cynical. The Eng- 
lish are not popular on the continent, though Eng- 
land is feared and respected. The Americans are 
liked because they are believed to be fair and square. 

At the other end of Lake Geneva is the castle of 
Chillon. It is about as big as the court-house in 



128 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Hutchinson, and looks like the old sugar-mill, only 
more so. Byron did a great deal for the people in 
that neck of the woods, for his poem made the castle 
famous, and tourists come by the hundreds and buy. 
In return they have named the big hotel the Byron, 
which shows they are not ungrateful. Byron's poem 
had the poor prisoner confined in a dungeon with two 
brothers, and he had the torture of seeing them die. 
The facts are that there never was any "prisoner of 
Chillon" except in the brilliant imagination of Lord 
Byron. Of course many prisoners were confined in 
the dungeon. Every castle in Europe has a dungeon, 
and none of them were constructed with an idea of 
sanitary conditions or the health of the prisoners. 
But the dungeon at Chillon is the lightest and airiest 
dungeon I have seen. It is as comfortable as a good 
many hotel rooms in the United States. The only 
prisoner of note that had any such experience was a 
preacher named Bonnivard, who was kept there for 
two years because he believed or didn't believe in 
Calvin, — I have forgotten which it was. Bonnivard 
had no brothers, and lived a number of years after- 
ward and said he enjoyed his confinement at Chillon 
because he had so much time to think. Our guide 
showed our party the pathway the prisoner's feet 
had worn in the rock where he had walked back and 
forth within the limit of his chains. I couldn't see 
the path, although everybody else did. The rest of 
the castle of Chillon is very interesting, as it was the 
residence of a fine line of dukes who were always 
fighting either for or against the king. Our guide, 



GENEVA AND CHILLON. 129 

who spoke only French, told us all about it, but I 
shall not repeat what she said. The people of Hutchin- 
son would not understand her remarks any better 
than I did. 

My idea of a good joke is to have a guide who can 
only talk French tell an American who can't under- 
stand French something very important or serious. 
The Frenchman tells his story with rapidity, earnest- 
ness and gestures. The American listens with frank 
impatience and punctuates the French sentences with 
American ejaculations which have no connection with 
the subject. The Frenchman acts mad, but he isn't 
at all. The American acts pleasant, but he is really 
mad. 

The castle of Chillon is in the lake, about sixty 
feet from the shore. You reach the entrance over a 
bridge after fighting your way through the sellers of 
souvenirs. That is one thing the old dukes did not 
have to contend with. If they were still doing busi- 
ness I think they would fill up the dungeon with the 
salesmen and salesladies. 



SOMETHING OF SWITZERLAND. 

Zurich, Switzerland, July 12, 1905. 
Switzerland is a succession of beautiful lakes, 
mountains and big hotels, dotted here and there with 
manufacturing towns and vineyards. It has been 
said that you cannot get too much of a good thing, 
but that is a mistake. Even the man who loves pie 
must admit that after he has had all the pie he can 
consume three times a day for a week, he would want 
to change the subject. After one has been travel- 
ing through Swiss scenery for seven days he is almost 
satisfied. We no longer chase across the car to see 
a big mountain-peak, or hurry out of the hotel soon 
after our arrival to behold the lake. And men and 
women with feathers in their hats and alpenstocks 
in their hands do not make us turn our heads. The 
sight of a little level country would look mighty good, 
and a comfortable seat on the porch comes nearer to fill- 
ing the longing in my heart than the sight of a water- 
fall or an old castle several minutes' walk distant. 

Lucerne is the center of the tourist travel. All 
roads into Switzerland lead to Lucerne, and the 
scenery is more varied than at any other of the show 
places. The town is on the lake and the mountains are 
around it. From my hotel I could see Mount Pilatus, 

(130) 



SOMETHING OF SWITZERLAND. 131 

the place where they say Pontius Pilate finally found 
a resting-place. At the other end of the view is the 
snow-covered Rigi, and there are all kinds of Alps in 
the background. Lucerne looks like an American 
summer resort. It is made up of hotels and souvenir 
shops, and elegantly dressed women parade up and 
down the promenade walks, while rich old gentlemen 
sit uncomfortably around the piazzas and wish the 
women-folks had let them stay at home. It is aston- 
ishing how many men act as if they would give a good 
deal to be at work somewhere rather than in Switzer- 
land "enjoying themselves." A lot of people do not 
know how to have a good time or how to see a strange 
and delightful place. I meet many people who do 
not care for Europe, or Italy, or Switzerland, — the 
people who bring a stack of trunks and good clothes 
and have to put in their time dressing up only to be 
out-dressed by somebody else. 

But Lucerne has one thing different. It is the 
"Lion of Lucerne, " the monument erected in honor 
of the Swiss soldiers who died in the French palace 
defending the rotten Bourbon dynasty when the revo- 
lutionists broke in and captured the king and queen. 
The lion (twenty-eight feet in length) is carved out 
of a sandstone ledge, and is the finest monument or 
statue I ever saw. The king of beasts is dying, agony 
on his face, a broken lance in his side, and his huge 
paw resting on a shield of the lilies of France. The 
more I looked at the great work of Thorwaldsen the 
more I felt it, and I went back again and again to see 
it, — the real test of effect. Nearly everyone has seen 



132 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

copies or pictures of this work, but it is one of the 
things that no copy can do justice to, for the size and 
substance of the stone, the pathos and power of the 
subject and the skill and the genius of the sculptor 
have met most perfectly and impressively. 

Near Lucerne is the scene of the early struggle for 
Swiss liberty. Around the lake of Lucerne are the 
three cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, whose 
representatives met some 500 years ago and entered 
into the compact to stand together for freedom, a com- 
pact which has never been broken. Here William Tell 
refused to take off his hat to the hat the tyrant Gessler 
had set up and ordered all to salute. To punish Tell 
the governor ordered him to take his bow and arrow 
and shoot an apple from the head of his son. TelFs 
aim was true, but as he turned away another arrow 
dropped from his coat. When asked why he had that, 
he said it was for Gessler if the boy had been hurt. 
Gessler took Tell in a boat and was carrying him to a 
dungeon, when a storm arose and Tell was released in 
order to use his skill as a boatman. He knew that 
the world wasn't big enough for both himself and Gess- 
ler, so he soon after inserted an arrow into the tyrant's 
ribs, and the Austrians had to get a new governor. 

Some cynical historians doubt this Tell story, but 
I do not. It is just as good a story as a lot which ap- 
pear in history and it is good enough to be true. 

After the Tell revolution, which was in the thirteenth 
century, those Swiss cantons never lost their freedom, 



SOMETHING OF SWITZERLAND. 133 



although they had to fight for it about every generation. 
The Hapsburg family, which reigned in Austria, was 
always trying to conquer the Swiss, and although its 
power was great enough to overcome any army they 
could collect, it could not cope with the mountains and 
gulches in which the Swiss were at home, and where 
one man who knew the land was equal in fighting 
value to a dozen knights in armor or on horseback. 
On that account the Swiss, especially the people of 
these "forest cantons," have been a free people through 
all the changes in the world during more than 500 
years. Sometimes they have been selfish and narrow 
in their ideas of freedom, considering that they were 
the only people on earth, and they have until the last 
century held serfs and domineered despotically over 
weak neighbors. But they were always far in advance 
of the rest of the world in their ideas of personal lib- 
erty. Switzerland is the one country which has always 
been a refuge to exiled patriots, rebels, conspirators 
and pretenders. Switzerland will not surrender a fu- 
gitive from another country on a political charge. The 
judges who sentenced Charles I. of England to death 
sought refuge in Switzerland when Charles II. came to 
the throne. Charles demanded that the judges be 
given up to him, and brought every influence to bear, 
but the Swiss stood by their law of refuge. To-day 
the anarchists and nihilists of Russia and the revolu- 
tionists of every country from Roumania to Spain 
have their headquarters in Geneva or some other Swiss 
town. 



134 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

It will be noticed that I think a good deal of the 
Swiss, and that I have written some criticism of the 
Italians. I went through Italy without ever being 
overcharged, "held up/' or worked by cab-drivers, 
hotel-keepers, or anyone at all. But in Switzerland, 
the land of freedom and education, I have had all these 
things done to me. I have been surprised and pleased 
by the way the people of Europe treat strangers, even 
if they do want tips. I had not been meanly treated 
from the time I left Boston until I reached Switzerland. 
The last man I did business with in my native land was 
a Boston hackman, who charged me twice what he 
should when he brought us to the ship. I did not meet 
his equal until I got to Lucerne. I hope there is no 
connection between personal liberty, republican gov- 
ernment, and the swindling of strangers. 

Yesterday we went to St. Gallen, a little industrial 
town near Constance. The women will recognize the 
name of this town if the men do not, for it is the place 
Swiss embroideries come from. I found out one thing 
there : Most of the Swiss hand embroidery is made by 
machinery. The Swiss are called the Yankees of Eu- 
rope. They are up to almost all the tricks of the trade. 
They are changing from a pastoral and agricultural 
people, except right in the mountains, and are making 
money out of manufactories and tourists. The men 
and women do not wear the ridiculous and charming 
peasant costumes, except in beer-gardens and summer- 
resort hotels. In fact, I am impressed with the same- 
ness of people's clothes everywhere. There is no longer 



SOMETHING OF SWITZERLAND. 135 



any such thing as characteristic costume. I saw the 
men's clothes in Italy all cut and made just as in France, 
England, or America. The women have the same 
styles in the country districts of Switzerland that they 
do in Kansas or in Paris. Of course some people know 
how to wear their clothes better than others, and there 
is a difference in fit and make, but the styles are the 
same from Hutchinson to St. Gallen. 

I am learning some things in geography. Mont 
Blanc, the biggest mountain in Switzerland, is in 
France. Constance, one of the best Swiss resorts, is 
in Germany. Switzerland is such a busy little country 
that it bulges out all around. 



SWISS AND SWITZERLAND. 

Neuhausen, Switzerland, July 13, 1905. 
Soon after I arrived in Switzerland I inquired at a 
Geneva hotel the name of the President of the Repub- 
lic of Switzerland. The hall porter (about the same as 
chief clerk) could not tell me, nor could he find out on 
inquiry around the office. Several times in Geneva I 
asked the same question, but always in vain. One 
or two men thought they knew, but they were not sure, 
and, as I learned afterward, they guessed wrong. I 
kept at the work of finding out who was the chief ex- 
ecutive until I reached Lucerne. In a bookstore there 
my question aroused the interest of the proprietor, 
who spoke good English, and he inquired around until 
he found out that the President of Switzerland is 
named Brenner. During the process I suppose I asked 
a dozen educated Swiss, and three-fourths of them 
could give me promptly the name of the President of 
the United States, but not the name of their own Pres- 
ident. Of course there is a reason for what would be 
fearful ignorance in any other country. The Presi- 
dent of Switzerland doesn't amount to as much as the 
Vice-President of the United States, and it would stag- 
ger a good many Americans to tell who was Vice- 
President before Roosevelt. Switzerland is a rather 
loosely bound together confederation of cantons 
(states). The cantons are jealous of the federal gov- 

(136) 



SWISS AND SWITZERLAND. 137 

ernment, and give it very little power. Up to a few- 
years ago there would be tariffs in some cantons 
against importations from others. The general gov- 
ernment has the power to do the international business, 
but Switzerland keeps out of European politics. It 
would have little or no power as an offensive nation 
with its three million of people, and so it contents it- 
self with furnishing scenery, wine, watches, music- 
boxes and good air to the inhabitants of other coun- 
tries who are able to buy. The federal government 
consists of a congress composed of representatives 
from the cantons made up like our Senate and House. 
This congress elects an executive committee of seven, 
and the President of Switzerland is merely the chair- 
man of that executive committee. Berne is the cap- 
ital of Switzerland and the congress meets there, but 
it can only propose important legislation, which is then 
submitted to the people, who usually defeat it. The 
cantons of Switzerland have various kinds -of republi- 
can government. Some have legislatures, some coun- 
cils, and in a few of the small ones, where it is practi- 
cable, the government acts by mass meetings of the 
people, with an executive or a committee to carry out 
the legislation. The small area of the country and of 
the twenty-two cantons (they average about the size 
of Reno county, but some are not bigger than a com- 
missioner district) makes the government a peculiar 
proposition. There is no foreign immigration, no un- 
educated class, and no one whose ancestors have not 
been self-governing for a generation. And yet as they 
have remodeled their local and federal constitutions 



138 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

and charters, they have come closer to the American 
methods all the time, the only important difference 
being the initiative and referendum, which is after all 
only a continuance of their ancient "land gemeinde," 
or mass meetings of the people at which measures 
were considered and officers elected, the voting now 
being done by ballot instead of holding up the hands. 

As I have written before, in some cantons the people 
use one language and in some another. Likewise in 
some everybody is a Protestant and in others every- 
body is a Catholic; very seldom both faiths in one 
canton. During the Reformation and for a number of 
years afterward the Swiss fought and killed each other 
for the love of God as fiercely as in any other country. 
Switzerland and southern Germany, which borders on 
it, were the fields in which the great Reformers did 
their best and worst work. The Reformation in Switz- 
erland was double-headed. One branch, led by Calvin, 
was marked by what we call Puritan austerity, and had 
its headquarters at Geneva. From there went John 
Knox to Scotland and a host of eminent preachers to 
England and other countries, forming what is now 
called the Presbyterian Church. Zwingli, at Zurich, 
was a milder, gentler teacher, and his kind of Protest- 
antism grew most in Switzerland. Luther, only a 
little way off, had still another kind of Protestantism, 
and each of the three differed considerably in confession 
of faith, Calvin standing on the principle of predestina- 
tion, Luther holding to transubstantiation, or the doc- 



SWISS AND SWITZERLAND. 139 

trine of the actual presence of the body of our Saviour 
in communion, Zwingli insisting that communion was 
only symbolic. Mutual friends brought Zwingli and 
Luther together, and when they could not agree, 
Zwingli held out his hand in parting and Luther would 
not even shake hands. Zwingli was killed in a battle 
in a religious war with the Catholics, but his creed 
really became the dominant one in Swiss Protestantism. 
Calvin had Servetus burned to death because he denied 
the trinity. 

So you see in the good old days in Switzerland there 
was a hard time for the plain and honest person trying 
to do what was right. Those times are passed now, 
and Protestant and Catholic cantons get along peace- 
ably ; but there is still friction. Each canton in Switz- 
erland looks after its educational matters and there are 
good schools everywhere. In nearly every city is a 
big university. I suppose that in proportion to popu- 
lation there are more university graduates in Switzer- 
land than in any other country on earth. In America 
the young men and women too often cut short their 
education in order to get into business. In Switzer- 
land, there are no such alluring opportunities, and the 
students stay till graduation. A young Swiss will go 
through the university and then go to work at the 
trade of his father. In America the young man would 
want to "do better" and really does worse by becoming 
a lawyer or an editor. Even good things have their 
bad features, and American colleges make mighty poor 
professional men out of material which was intended for 
good mechanics and farmers. 



140 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

We spent a couple of days in Zurich, the largest city 
of Switzerland. Its special industry is silk-making, and 
the silk and embroidery stores are beautiful. The main 
business street of Zurich has two rows of trees like 
First avenue in Hutchinson, and the result is a delight- 
ful change from the usual hot, bare main street of a 
city. And that reminds me that it is a law in Switzer- 
land or in the forest cantons that no one can cut down 
a tree except by official permission, and then another 
must be planted to take its place. 

In the agricultural and pastoral parts of Switzer- 
land a great deal of land is held "in common/' that is 
government land, under the control of the canton, not 
for sale at any price, but for the use of the people of 
the community under strict regulations. So a Swiss 
peasant will have a few acres of land of his own, a few 
cattle, and a right as a citizen to pasture on the com- 
mon ground and a share of the profits of the forest. 
Immigration is not invited, although tourists with 
money are welcomed, for the more people the less the 
share of. each in the common fund. There can hardly 
be any poverty in Switzerland, except, of course, in 
the cities. Every Swiss peasant can make a living if 
he will work. But neither can he be expected to get 
rich nor be a bigger man than his father. He must 
follow the beaten path marked out by centuries of 
custom and more firmly established than the unwritten 
constitution of the country. 

I am getting more and more impressed with the 
fallacy of " cheapness " in Europe. Comparing prices 



SWISS AND SWITZERLAND. 141 

with those of Hutchinson, I find that the things which 
are cheaper here are silks, kid gloves, diamonds, and 
the products of labor like embroidery, lace, clocks, 
wood carvings, tailor-made clothes and straw hats 
(poorly made). Cotton goods, linen goods, shoes, iron 
and steel, bread and meat, coffee, and most of what we 
call necessities of life, are higher in Europe than in 
America. It is the people who are cheap and not the 
things ; and when I say " cheap " I do not mean lacking 
in energy, ability, or industry, but in opportunity to 
make more than a living, to have leisure or the com- 
mon luxuries and often necessities. 
¥¥¥ 
This is the last night in Switzerland. To-morrow 
we cross the line to Constance, which is in Germany, 
and which is spelled Konstanz and abbreviated "Kaz.," 
which makes it near to "Kas." Neuhausen is the 
place where the Rhine makes its big leap down the 
rocks, a fall of sixty feet, and on account of the volume 
of water the grandest in Europe. It is the Niagara 
Falls of the Alpine country, but it is not in the same 
class with Niagara Falls, U. S. A. The Rhine is about 
as wide as the Kaw at Topeka, but much deeper, and 
the falls are about four times the height of Bower- 
sock's dam at Lawrence. A beautiful hotel faces the 
roaring torrent as it precipitates itself over the rocks 
amid clouds of spray. The prices at the hotel are higher 
than the falls. I can only call to mind one place where 
you feel that you are being more genteelly robbed with 
your own consent, and that is at Niagara Falls, New 
York. But our Niagara Falls are higher to correspond. 



GERMANY 



IN THE BLACK FOREST. 

Triberg, Germany, July 17, 1905. 
This is a small town in the middle of the Black For- 
est. I had read a good deal of the Black Forest, but 
really had no idea what it was. The name sounded 
as if it might be a part of Arkansas or Louisiana, and I 
think I was looking for swamps and waste land cov- 
ered with underbrush and impenetrable to travelers 
except on made roads. But as a matter of fact it is as 
delightful and beautiful a country as I have seen since 
I left Kansas. The land is mountainous, but it is fer- 
tile and the valleys and hillsides are dotted with thrifty- 
looking little farms. The name applies, all right, for 
the mountains are covered with dense forests of spruce 
trees with a dark-green foliage which looks really black. 
The farming land has evidently been cleared in the 
centuries that have passed since the roving Germans 
settled into peaceful peasants and quit their occupation 
of making Rome howl by raiding and pillaging the 
towns of the declining empire. The Black Forest cov- 
ers a great part of southwest Germany, mostly in the 
state or grand duchy of Baden. Up to a short time 
ago it had a number of practically independent little 
kingdoms about the size of your hat, which were in a 
perpetual struggle for existence and recognition. An- 
thony Hope used the Black Forest as the scene for his 
Zenda stories, and to-day we came through the princi- 

-10 (145) 



146 A JOURNEY OF A J AY HAWKER. 

pality of Fiirstenberg, one of his favorite places, in 
which the prince of Fiirstenberg still holds an honorary 
position but under the actual government of Emperor 
William. I also noticed that the prince was proprietor 
of a big brewery. 

It is harvest-time in the Black Forest, and men 
and women are gathering the crops, small grain and 
hay, using the hand-sickle and the hand-rake but 
doing their work in a thorough manner. When they 
get through the raking I don't suppose there is a waste 
straw left lying on the ground or a kernel of grain which 
is not carefully picked up. The farmer in Europe 
would get rich on what an American farmer drops on 
the way from the field to the barn. They have fine 
horses and cattle in the Black Forest, and look pros- 
perous. When one horse is used in a wagon he is har- 
nessed alongside the pole and not between shafts. I 
was told the reason was that it was to make it easy to 
add another horse if desired without changing the pole. 
That was nearly as strange as the one horse alongside 
the pole. 

¥¥¥ 

The time is past when the sight of ladies working in 
the field excites any interest, although I still have a 
little feeling when the woman is sixty or seventy years 
old. It is not so bad in Germany, and especially in the 
Black Forest, where the air is light and exhilarating ; 
and then the men work too. In Italy the hauling was 
done by animals as follows : Horses, oxen, cows, dogs, 
women. Sometimes a woman and a dog were hitched 
together to small wagons, especially milk carts. In 



IN THE BLACK FOREST. 147 

Switzerland the dogs were still in harness, but the 
women were out of it. And in the Black Forest I be- 
lieve the dogs are freed, as all the vehicles I have seen 
have been drawn by horses or oxen. Perhaps it will 
be different later. I write now only of the Black For- 
est. We drove for twelve miles down one of the val- 
leys and through the little villages. A number of the 
old peasant costumes were worn by women and girls, 
although most of them were dressed in the same styles 
as in Paris or Hutchinson. A very striking head-dress 
for the feminine is one of the Black Forest styles, a 
bonnet with two large wings extending upward at an 
angle of about 40 degrees from the head, and with flow- 
ing bands several feet long down the back. Girls and 
unmarried women have bright-colored wings and bands, 
married women must wear black. By the way, the 
women of continental Europe wherever we have been 
have worn earrings, — France, Italy, and Switzerland. 
As American women generally discarded these dis- 
figuring ornaments several years ago, the sight has 
been a strange one. Especially in Italy are the ear- 
rings large and imposing, rich and poor vieing with 
each other in size of the pendants and rings. 

Aside from agriculture the main industry of the 
Black Forest is wood-carving and clock-making. There 
are some small factories, but as a rule the work is done 
at home ; and it is very good. We visited one of these 
home shops, and the whole family showed us their 
handiwork. A beautifully carved wooden hall clock 
with a cuckoo and a music-box which played every 



148 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

half -hour was only $4 American money. It must have 
taken the man a week to make it, and in our country the 
price would have been several times as large. There 
is a big tariff on this ware going into America, and it 
is all right. If it were not so, our American wood- 
workers would have to learn another trade or work for 
$4 or $5 a week. And if they got only $4 or $5 a week 
they would not eat much meat, buy much clothing, or 
pay for many newspapers. See? 

The people of the Black Forest are a charming, 
friendly lot. I suppose they are as happy as anybody, 
although one of them was very proud of a brother who 
had gone to America and was making "much geld/' 
and whom he would follow if he could. All through 
Europe I meet people who have relatives in America, 
and that may account for the friendly treatment I have 
everywhere received. These American relatives have 
all gotten "rich" according to their European rela- 
tives, which shows that the immigrants to our country 
all succeed or keep a stiff upper lip when they write to 
the folks in the fatherland. 

The architecture of the Black Forest houses is as 
striking as any I have seen. Nearly every farmhouse 
is very large, at least three stories high, and on one 
or more sides the roof "gambrels" off from the high 
ridge nearly to the ground. The effect is like a tent- 
covering, and the roof is often thatched or tiled in 
two or three colors, — on some the green grass is grow- 
ing. Part of the house is the barn. The winter here 
is said to be severe, and the Forest peasant evidently 



IN THE BLACK FOREST. 149 

believes in having his family and his horses, cows and 
chickens where they can be comfortable and sociable. 
The houses are extra clean, and the furniture, dishes 
and utensils of the kitchen shine with the good polish- 
ing they must receive. The little farms are tilled to 
the limit, and are generally irrigated and always fer- 
tilized. Just to show how these people manage to 
get a' living out of the ground and the care they use 
to get it all, I saw women and men on the roadside 
with baskets cleaning the road of manure and carry- 
ing it to their land. 

*** 

We have had to learn a new money system in Ger- 
many. France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have 
what is called a "Latin league," with interchange- 
able currency, the unit being the franc (France, Swit- 
zerland, and Belgium), and the lire (Italy). But 
Germany joins no Latin leagues. The unit of the 
German currency is the "mark," equivalent to twenty- 
five cents American. This is divided into one hundred 
pfennigs. Prices are carried out to the pfennig, and 
one-pfennig coins (in value one-fourth of one cent) 
are seen more than our one-cent pieces at home. 
That illustrates the close, exact, economical German 
spirit. The first time I made a small purchase in 
Germany I got a pocketful of change. Mrs. Morgan 
wanted a little money, and I gave her a couple of 
handfuls. She said she didn't want so much, as she 
only intended to buy inexpensive things. I had 
actually given her about fifty cents. When one hun- 
dred copper coins make twenty-five cents and they 



150 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

are used in most transactions, you can realize what 
a heavy load you carry and how you can get that 
wealthy feeling without much actual expense. 

Soon after leaving Constance our road turned away 
from the Rhine, and going through a tunnel we were 
in the valley of the Danube. It startled me a little, 
as I had always connected the Danube with Austria 
and Turkey. But sure enough, we were riding along 
the banks of the Danube, which has been made fa- 
mous by history, poetry and music. If a raindrop fell 
on one side of that hill it would go down to the Rhine 
to the Baltic, and if the wind blew it over to the other 
side before it struck the earth it would start eastward 
and journey down the Danube to the Black sea. 
Rivers are like human beings, — they get their di- 
rections from the place where they start and go on- 
ward along the road of least resistance to the place 
appointed, unless dammed or taken up by man or 
God, in which case they will struggle and work to 
seep back to the channel in which it was intended 
they should make their course. 

By the way, the "Beautiful Blue Danube'' is not 
blue at all in this part of its career, but almost black, 
seemingly taking its hue from the forests in which 
it has its origin. 

The town of Triberg is a quaint little place near 
the top of the mountain, and apparently about one 
hundred miles from Nowhere. I have had my first 
experience with what I understand is not infrequent 



IN THE BLACK FOREST. 151 

in old German towns. There is a tax on strangers, 
thirty pfennigs a day or one mark a week, and our 
hotel has to pay and charge in our bill. Ministers 
of the gospel, and paupers, are exempt. In America 
if they had a fool tax like that they would also exempt 
newspaper men. The only way I could get out of 
paying the tax was to make affidavit that I was a 
minister or a pauper, so I reluctantly gave up the 
offer to dodge taxation and the town of Triberg is 
fifteen cents to the good on account of our stay. How- 
ever, there is a very fine waterfall, and we looked 
fifteen cents' worth at that and called it even. 



STORIES OF STRASSBURG. 

Strassburg, Germany, July 18, 1905. 

To use the American vernacular, Strassburg is a 
good town. It has the best-looking stores, the most 
energetic acting people and the most thriving ap- 
pearance of any city since we left Paris. The reason 
for this is probably the mingling of the German and 
the French and the location of the city as the me- 
troplis of a very rich territory lying in both countries. 
Strassburg is a German city in which the people are 
at heart French. Thirty years ago the treaty which 
ended the Franco-German war gave Strassburg and 
two of the rich provinces of eastern France, Alsace 
and Lorraine, to the German empire. But it did not 
give the German emperor a warranty deed to the 
hearts of the people, and they long for their old asso- 
ciations. Probably the new generation is not so 
much disposed to France, and the influence of edu- 
cation and environment will gradually change the 
desire of the Alsatians to be sometime reunited with 
their old countrymen, but time and again to-day in 
taking with the Strassburgers they have given me to 
understand that they were not Germans but French. 

Strassburg has a history as a city on its own ac- 
count. Away back in 1300 the people revolted from 
the rule of the bishop who was their sovereign, and 
gained their independence. For 400 years Strass- 

(152) 



STORIES OF STRASSBURG. 153 

burg was what is known as a "free city," owing some 
allegiance to the German empire but governing it- 
self and doing about as it pleased. The language, 
the customs and the sympathy of the people were 
German. In 1681 Louis XIV. of France in a time 
of peace seized Strassburg, and a few years later in 
a general treaty France was confirmed in the title, 
and from that time until 1871 it was a French city. 
During the war of 1870 Strassburg did not surrender 
to the overwhelming German army until its defenses 
were battered down and the city bombarded. And 
as I wrote from Paris, in the galaxy of statues repre- 
senting the cities of France in the Parisian Place de 
la Concorde, the statue of Strassburg is hung with 
emblems of mourning, and some day France will 
fight to get the city back. Germany knows this, 
and the city has been strongly fortified and a garrison 
of 15,000 German soldiers is kept there. So many 
soldiers in a city of 150,000 people give a showy look 
to the streets, the promenades and the public places, 
and doubtless is a good thing financially for the mer- 
chants. 

Since leaving Italy I have sworn off on cathedrals, 
but I had to go to the one here because it is a good 
one and because of the Strassburg clock. The spire 
of the Strassburg cathedral is one of the highest in 
Europe, 465 feet, beating by a few feet St. Peter's 
at Rome and St. Paul's in London. The rest of the 
building is just the ordinary cathedral except for the 
clock. The first big clock was constructed here in 



154 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

1352 and it lasted two centuries, when another took 
its place , to be succeeded sixty years ago by the pres- 
ent one. This clock is about the size of the front of 
an ordinary church. It not only tells the hour and 
minute of the day, but the day of the week, the month 
of the year, the feast da3^s of the church, and is regu- 
lated to run for centuries, automatically making the 
right figures for leap years and adapting itself to the 
revolution of feast and fast days for an almost un- 
limited number of years. Every fifteen minutes an 
angel figure strikes the bell for the quarter-hour, and 
figures representing boyhood, youth, manhood and 
old age come out for the appropriate quarters. A 
skeleton strikes the hour and another reverses an 
hour-glass. At noon there is a parade of the twelve 
apostles before the Saviour, and a big rooster at one 
side crows loudly twice before Peter gets to the front 
and the third time as he passes. I am getting a great 
sympathy for Peter because he has that story thrown 
up to him in so many cathedrals, churches and pic- 
tures in Europe. It seems to me that Peter did enough 
after that to entitle him to a rest on the cock-crow 
story. 

*** 

Next to the cathedral clock the most interesting 
sight to my mind was the washerwomen's boats in 
the river. About 500 women were in these canal- 
shaped boats washing clothes, rinsing them in the river 
and having a good gossiping time of it. 



STORIES OF STRASSBURG. 155 

The emperor of Germany has a palace in Strass- 
burg where he spends at least three days every year 
in the month of May. I did not know this, so when 
I saw the imperial palace on the city map I told the 
driver to take us there. I had never met Emperor 
William and he had never met me. I entered the 
palace door as directed by the cab-driver and was 
pleasantly received by a fine, portly gentleman. Of 
course I knew he wasn't the emperor, so I spoke in a 
dignified way as becomes an American citizen toying 
with the effete monarchies of Europe, and asked the 
gentleman in my best German if the emperor was at 
home, at the same time assuring him that if the em- 
peror was busy not to bother him, as I could come 
again after supper when he would be through his work. 
The fat gentleman bowed and told me the emperor 
was here only in May, and asked me if we would like 
to go over the palace. I spoke up abruptly, as if I were 
used to running around palaces ; that as I had nothing 
else to do just then, having laid out to put in a short 
time with Emperor Bill, I wouldn't mind if I did. 
He was a very nice man, a court chamberlain, he said, 
and he took Mrs. Morgan and me all through the 
palace and the big dining-room and ball-room and the 
king's den, and all that sort of thing. Before we 
went onto the polished floors of the big rooms we 
had to put felt slippers on over our shoes — a good 
thing to keep the floors from getting scratched, 
and I suppose it is a kind of ground rule that Mrs. 
Emperor has made to protect the varnish from the 



156 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

hobnailed boots of William's friends. I hope the 
custom won't spread to America. 

The German emperor has a mighty good house in 
Strassburg, and it has been furnished regardless of 
expense. There was a notice up, "Visitors not al- 
lowed to sit on the chairs/' but I wasn't very tired 
anyway. I looked for a sign not to spit on the floor 
to go with some of the other wall decoration, but it 
must have been overlooked. The house looked stiff, 
and I don't believe Bill has much fun at home and 
probably his wife makes him go out on the porch to 
smoke. I was sorry not to meet the emperor, as we 
will not get to Berlin, and I had some things to tell 
him. However, I feel that I have done the proper 
thing by calling on him and not waiting for him to 
hunt me up. 

There is not so much American-made stuff in Eu- 
rope as I expected. There is a good deal, but in fact 
these Germans and French are up to about every- 
thing that we are, and sometimes they have us bested. 
The Singer sewing-machine is everywhere, even in 
Italy. American shoes are the leaders in their lines 
in every city. American typewriters are sold ahead 
of European. Wernicke bookcases and office furni- 
ture are advertised and sold almost as at home. But 
the list of American goods is not very long, or else 
they are sold under other names and brands. To-day 
we bought a good picture of a typical German girl 
to take home with us as our art collection from Eu- 
rope. Before we had gone a block Mrs. Morgan found 



STORIES OF STRASSBURG. 157 

the tag which proclaimed, "Made in Springfield, 
Massachusetts, U. S. A." We were chagrined that 
our European purchase had turned out to be an 
American importation, sold to us at a higher price 
than it would have been at home, but we were proud 
that here in Germany they knew the country to send 
to in order to get good pictures of fetching Dutch 
maidens. At Zurich I started to buy a little office 
fixture which I thought I had never seen before and 
which I intended to take home to surprise the Kansans, 
when I found out just in time that it was made by the 
Globe-Wernicke company of Cincinnati, and I knew 
we had the same thing for sale at The News office in 
Hutchinson. Hereafter in buying souvenirs of Eu- 
rope we will look close for the brand. 

This is the place where the "pate de fois gras" 
originated. I do not know how many people in Kan- 
sas know what pate de fois gras is and whether it is 
a flower or a dog. I had once seen the words on a 
bill of fare in a very swell restaurant, but the figures 
which followed the name were so much larger than 
those after ham and eggs that I stuck to "ham and." 
But when in Rome you must see the Forum, in Venice 
you must see St. Mark's, and in Strassburg you must 
have some pate de fois gras. The food combination 
which the four French words stand for is based on 
goose-liver, and corresponds to about what we would 
call "goose-liver smothered in roses." It is very 
good, and you never forget the delicious taste or the 
price. Strassburg chefs make the stuff, can it and 



158 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKEB. 

ship it all over the world to people who like delicate 
things to eat and who have sufficient credit to get 
a good stand-off. Pate de fois gras is sweeter than 
chocolate, more luscious than peaches and more de- 
licious than lemon pop at a Fourth of July picnic. 
It is a proof that Strassburgers have French stomachs 
as well as French hearts. 

Speaking of eatables, we had the first loaf of bread 
in Switzerland that we had seen since we left home. 
After nearly two months on hard, stale rolls the sight 
of a reasonably good loaf of bread at Geneva made 
as strong an impression on my mind as Mont Blanc 
Anybody who has traveled in Europe or in Arkansas 
will appreciate the feelings of a Kansan when he puts 
a slice of fairly soft bread between his teeth. It is 
better than pate de fois gras, and it is almost ex- 
clusively an American institution. 



IN OLD HEIDELBERG. 

Heidelberg, Germany, July 22, 1905. 
This is the old and famous university town of Ger- 
many. It is about two miles long and 200 yards 
wide, lying between the river Neckar and the steep 
hills which rise 500 feet high and which can only be 
ascended by terraced roads or a modern tunnel rail- 
way. The town is of comparatively recent origin, 
being really started only 850 years ago, when a Rhen- 
ish count who wanted to build a strong and impregna- 
ble fortress selected a spot 400 feet straight up the 
hill from the river and built the old castle of Heidel- 
berg. Being thus the capital of a little German state, 
the Palatinate of the Rhine, it was an important 
place during the Middle Ages, and was fought over 
every few years for several centuries. In the four- 
teenth century the ruling count, whose title was Elec- 
tor, developed a literary streak and founded the uni- 
versity, which became the center of learning and 
scientific study in Germany, and has continued so 
until the present clay, although some of the newer 
universities like Berlin and Leipsig are now larger. 
The valley of the Neckar joins the valley of the Rhine 
here and makes a fertile territory and a prosperous 
city, but the university and the students are the main 
features of modern Heidelberg, now that counts, elect- 
ors and castles are ruins or relics. There are many 

(159) 



160 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

students in Heidelberg from America and other coun- 
tries; but it is the rollicking German "yunkers" who 
make the life of the place. 

German universities differ somewhat from American 
universities in the character and method of work. 
There are no recitations — only lectures and examina- 
tions. A student does not have to attend either. He 
can attend Heidelberg year in and year out and devote 
himself exclusively to the beer-garden and the dueling- 
ground. Or he can work hard, receive the ablest in- 
struction and the highest degrees. The discipline of 
the common schools in Germany is severe — military 
in its character. But at the university the young man 
or young woman (for women now attend lectures at 
Heidelberg) can do as they please and go to Hades if 
they desire. The university buildings are plain and 
ordinary. The picturesque feature is the students, es- 
pecially the young men who belong to the various 
"corps." Less than 10 per cent, of the students are 
members of these societies, but they color the town, 
for each corps has a distinctive cap, — red, yellow, white, 
etc. These organizations are the social life of the uni- 
versity, and at all hours of the day or night they are 
in evidence, parading with their caps and canes, occu- 
pying the beer-gardens and the promenade, jollying 
the girl waiters and having what is called in America a 

High Old Time. 

$- $- $ 

Everybody has heard of the duel or sword-fighting. 
It is as much an institution at Heidelberg as football 
is at Princeton or K. U. Not many students take part 



IN OLD HEIDELBERG. 161 

in it, only members of the six corps, but it is the show 
feature of student life. Each corps has about twenty 
members. Each member has to fight at least one duel 
a term with a member of some other corps. This morn- 
ing we went to the dueling-place just outside of the 
city and saw the game. 

One gets a great deal of misinformation about this 
student dueling, but as near as I can find out it is done 
in a genteel and cold-blooded manner. When it is the 
turn of one of the corps members to fight he makes a 
face or refuses to salute a member of another corps. 
That constitutes cause for the duel, and the prelim- 
inaries are then arranged by the officers of the respect- 
ive corps according to the rules and regulations that 
have come down through generations. The fighting 
is done in an inner court of a wine-garden. This morn- 
ing there were ten duels on the program, and when we 
arrived the third was in progress. A young man of the 
bright-red-cap corps was trying to slice the face of a 
member of the dark-red-cap corps. Each was covered 
with felt armor, which protected all of his body, and 
also had goggles and nose-pad, a little bit more so than 
a football player. The seconds, very similarly attired, 
stood by the side of the principals and struck up the 
swords at the end of each round or when the blood 
came. The only unprotected places were the head and 
face, and the game was to slash the opponent there, 
not to stick him. Thrusting is evidently against the 
rules. A surgeon with an apron like a butcher attended 
to the cuts and the members of both corps stood quietly 
and calmly by, giving vent to no expression of feeling 
-11 



162 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

whatever. The officers of each corps saluted, the word 
was given, the two swords clashed away for a minute, 
and each fellow had a nice long cut on his cheek. When 
the round was over the seconds sponged the cuts. 
There is no specified number of rounds, but whenever 
the two seconds are satisfied that one man is cut 
enough the other is declared the victor and they salute 
and retire to get court-plastered or sewed up as is nec- 
essary. We saw four duels and got tired of the fun. 
In the last fought one of the men was apparently an 
experienced swordsman and his opponent apparently 
a beginner. (I understand that in order to show his 
courage a new man always challenges an expert.) Af- 
ter four rounds the face of the weaker swordsman was 
streaming with blood from a half-dozen cuts. I sup- 
pose he looked upon his defeat as a real victory because 
he showed the fellows that he could stand up and take 
punishment and never wince. Some people have cu- 
rious ideas of greatness. 

They tell me no one is ever killed in these duels, but 
every member of every corps would be considered dis- 
figured for life in America. Every one of them has 
long scars on his face and head. The restaurant where 
we eat is a favorite resort for the corps and we see much 
of them. It looks like a shame that every one of those 
bright young men will have to go through life with a 
face like a war map of Manchuria. But they wouldn't 
trade those scars for love nor money. (I am told 
they are good for love.) They are the badges of bra- 
very and ability, and are as highly prized as the bronze 
button of the Grand Army man. As I have remarked, 




THE GERMAN WAY. 



IN OLD HEIDELBERG. 163 

some ambitions are very funny, and if the German 
students want to be hand-carved in this manner there 
is no use of a football-, prize-fight-loving nation making 
any kick. 

Heidelberg is a "wet" town. I suppose half the 
places on the main street are beer-gardens and some 
of the others are wine-rooms. Everybody in Germany 
drinks beer and wine. There is this difference be- 
tween France and Germany : In France the men do 
most of the drinking as they sit in the sidewalk cafes 
watching the women go by. In Germany the man 
brings his wife and children and they all sit around the 
table in the garden or restaurants and drink beer. They 
do not seem to get intoxicated. I haven't seen anyone 
drunk, although they drink by the wholesale. Beer 
is high in Heidelberg, up to 2\ cents a quart, but out 
in the suburbs it is cheaper. I think beer-drinking 
makes the Germans have bad forms, ^ for men and 
women get round and fat. But in Germany these 
forms are considered beautiful, so the sylph-like and 
the slender are looked down upon. It is an illustration 
of the fact that it is a good thing we don't all think 
alike about such things as personal beauty, or some of 
us would have to always be away back sitting down. 

I have been in Germany a week, and I have not seen 
a half-dozen men smoking pipes. I thought Germans 
were great pipe-smokers, but they are not in this part. 
The Heidelberg pipes are mostly made to sell to Amer- 



164 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

icans and English. The Germans smoke a little the 
worst cigars I have ever met. They are cheap in price 
andjthe Germans consume them in large quantities. 
The :kind the high-class Germans use closely resembles 
a brand known in our country as "The Pride of the 
Sewer/' and sells at about two for 5 cents. An Ameri- 
can who is accustomed at home to buying "a good 
nickel cigar" can't find anything that good in Germany, 
unless it may be in the big hotels where they cater to 
American and English trade. I had always had Ger- 
mans pictured to me as big fat men with long pipes in 
their mouths, sitting around tables on which were 
large steins of beer. The beer is here all right, but the 
men are as bright and energetic as Americans, and they 
smoke cigars and not pipes. 

Another dream gone up in smoke. 

It is a great country for castles and "legends." I 
think the average yield of legends per acre is larger in 
Germany than in any other country on earth, espe- 
cially in the Black Forest and on the Rhine. That is one 
thing our country is short of — legends. Aside from a 
few old Indian stories, a tale of woe about the grass- 
hoppers and reminiscences of the Populists, we haven't 
anything that approaches the legends which hang on 
almost every tree in the Black Forest and stick out of 
every castle- window. And yet Kansas couM raise 
legends as well as Germany, for a legend is nothing but 
a lie told so often that nobody knows where it started ; 
and Kansas has her share of liars. Here is a sample 



IN OLD HEIDELBERG. 165 



"legend " from the old castle of Heidelberg which we 
visited to-day: 

A HEIDELBERG LEGEND. 

The count of Heidelberg had a beautiful daughter. 
(They all do— in legends.) Her reputation for beauty 
went all over Germany and reached the shores of Great 
Britain. The king of England saw the photograph of 
the fair lady dressed in her bicycle suit, and instantly 
fell in love with her. But he did not want the German 
beauty to marry him for his money and title, so he 
disguised himself as a cook ; got a job in Heidelberg 
castle and made eyes at the princess. It was a case of 
two-hearts-that-beat-as-one, and the princess soon be- 
gan to make dates and meet the supposed cook back 
of the castle and down on the Neckar. He revealed 
his real identity to her, but made her promise not to 
tell. He then went to the old man and asked him 
for the hand of his daughter. The count laughed at 
the cook, which made the latter mad and so he blurted 
out that the maiden loved him. Then the cook skipped 
out and the count sent for his daughter. She con- 
fessed to being in love with the cook, but on account of 
her promise did not tell his right name. The old count 
got into an awful rage and ordered his daughter 
whipped, and the lash was applied so well that the 
princess died. Before she passed away she told her 
father who the cook really was, and the count of Hei- 
delberg was truly sorry; but that did no good. A few 
days later the king of England with an imposing suite 
arrived to ask the hand of the princess, and when he 



166 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

found out what had happened he took the old man out 
behind the barn and sliced him up in fine pieces. 

There is a song which tells all about this affair, and 
the music is about as good as the legend. 



WORMS AND OTHER THINGS. 

Worms, Germany, July 23, 1905. 
People do not laugh in Germany when you pronounce 
the name of this town properly. Say the word as if 
it were spelled Vorms and give the o the long sound, 
and you will admit that it is better than the way you 
used to say it. For many years I have heard of 
Luther and the Diet of Worms, and being at Heidel- 
berg, only a few miles away, we came here- to see 
Worms, the "Diet," and to spend Sunday. Four hun- 
dred years ago this was quite a town, one of the free 
cities of the Rhine owing allegiance only to the emperor. 
It was here that in 1524 Charles V., emperor of Ger- 
many, summoned Luther to appear before a congress 
of princes and imperial electors, and wanted him to fix 
up a compromise. The emperor of Germany was in a 
ticklish position. About half of his subjects were 
loyal to the pope and about half had bolted with 
Luther. The princes and dukes were divided, and 
were fighting each other to prove that they were right. 
The German empire was demoralized with internal 
dissension and feuds. So Charles thought it would be 
a smooth thing to get Luther before the august as- 
semblage, induce him to concede some and get the 
Catholics to concede some, and have a sort of "Mis- 
souri compromise." Luther went to Worms, although 
he was warned not to do so. As a matter of fact, 

(167) 



168 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Luther did not want to separate from the Catholic 
Church ; and his claim was that he wanted to reform it. 
But after the controversy had continued a few years 
he kept getting further away, and Charles had made 
his move too late. Luther laid down certain doctrines 
which he knew the loyal Catholics could not agree to, 
and then announced that he took his stand upon them 
and would not move. The result of the emperor's 
effort at peace-making was that each side was a little 
more infuriated than before, and the war went on. 

A hundred years ago Worms had gone down to be a 
town of only 5,000 inhabitants, but now it has about 
40,000 and is a thriving little city. But in spite of the 
growth and progress in the last century there is still 
a general air of quaintness and age which makes it 
very interesting because it is so different. A magnifi- 
cent monument to Luther is the show feature of the 
place. On a massive platform ten feet high is the 
figure of the great reformer, over nine feet high, sur- 
sounded by statues of Huss, Savonarola, Wyckliffe 
and Waldus, and of princes who befriended Luther. 
A number of German cities are represented by alle- 
gorical figures or coats of arms, and the entire group 
makes an impressive monument and memorial. The 
palace where Luther met the emperor and princes has 
been destroyed, but another takes its place and with a 
right good imagination the tourist can stand where 
Luther stood, any day between the hours of 11 and 5 
o'clock. Strange to say, the town to which Catholics 
and Protestants came is now controlled by the Jews, 



WORMS AND OTHER THINGS. 169 

who dominate the business interests of Worms as they 
do those of many other German cities. Worms is on 
the Rhine river, and the valley of the Rhine is the gar- 
den-spot of Germany. Coming over the fertile fields 
of the Rhine valley is a good deal like riding in the Ar- 
kansas valley between Nickerson and Haven, with its 
rich farms, great orchards and prosperous communities. 
But in the hundred miles I have traveled along the 
Rhine I have not seen a reaper or a mower, a sulky 
rake or any other kind of machinery except a hand- 
sickle and a hand-rake. I think there are more women 
at work in the fields than there are men. Perhaps the 
men are off in the army. Perhaps they are in town 
drinking beer and talking politics. 

Coming from Heidelberg to Worms we had to change 
trains twice in an hour's time. Changing trains is no 
easy job in a foreign country. At Manheim, where the 
station is as large and as busy as the Union Depot in 
Kansas City, our incoming train was late and when we 
arrived our outgoing train was due to leave. With the 
assistance of a porter I was handling a half-dozen grips 
and bundles when Mrs. Morgan discovered our train 
at the other side of the depot. She promptly started 
across the tracks just as she would at home. I 
thought there was a revolution or a fire, as a dozen 
train porters, as many policemen, the station-master 
and a lot of assistants set up a yell that fairly made the 
air tremble. The station-master rushed after her, 
caught up and brought her back, with at least ten men 
talking vociferously and gesticulating in German. The 



170 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

fact was she had broken the law of the empire. It is 
not merely violating a railroad rule to cross the track, 
but it is against the criminal law and punishable by a 
jail sentence. Of course they didn't do anything to 
Americans, but if a German should cross the tracks 
where it was forbidden they wouldn't do a thing to 
him! They actually held that train five minutes after 
time while we made a circuit of the station to the other 
side, when we could have sensibly and reasonably have 
been allowed to cross the track in a half-minute. 

Speaking of railroads and the management makes 
me think of the conductors. I have ridden first-class, 
second-class and third-class in Germany. When the 
conductor enters the first-class carriage to see the 
tickets, he takes off his cap and says in German: "If 
you please, will you me your tickets show? " When he 
comes into the second-class carriage he says : " Tickets, 
if you please," and when you hand them over he gives 
them back with a military salute, but keeps his cap on. 
When he comes into the third-class carriage he simply 
says: "Tickets!" 

When the train starts out of the station the station- 
master (dressed in a gorgeous uniform) stands on the 
platform at a salute until the last car passes him. This 
is a very pretty custom, and I think the station agents 
at Hutchinson ought to be required to put on their 
uniforms and salute the trains. 



WORMS AND OTHER THINGS. 171 

The almost universal custom in Germany is to eat 
out-of-doors in the summer-time. The hotels have 
spacious porches or gardens, and there we eat break- 
fast, dinner, and supper. (They have dinner at noon 
and supper in the evening in Germany.) There are no 
flies, and there seems to be but little wind, so you can 
eat comfortably in the open air and not swallow too 
much that is not on the bill of fare. It is a sensible and 
delightful custom. After the evening meal at the ho- 
tels or restaurants everybody stays at the table for an 
hour or so, and there is music by the orchestra or band. 
The only good feature I can see to the German army 
is that it provides nearly every city with a fine band 
which gives concerts frequently. The cities and towns 
usually support bands, and most of them own theatres 
and opera-houses. I think we have attended a band 
concert every evening since we entered Germany, and 
we could go in the afternoon if we had time. 

By the' way, right here in Worms, in the part of the 
city that looks about as it did in Luther's time, we were 
wandering down a narrow street when we were stopped 
by familiar music, the popular two-step, "Whistling 
Rufus." The German bands play a great deal of 
American music, mostly Sousa's marches or our "rag- 
time," and it always gets an encore. At Heidelberg 
the military band played "Hiawatha." For two years 
it has been almost against the law in the United States 
to play "Hiawatha." But the Germans liked it. I 
don't think the German bands play ragtime properly. 
They go at it seriously, as they do the selections from 
Wagner and such like which make up most of the 



172 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

program. They add a good deal of noise and they do 
not get the "swing" that is given by American musi- 
cians. 

I have discovered in Germany that Wagner and his 
kind of composers wrote a lot of good music that never 
gets across the water, the kind that has tune to it, — not 
so much tune as Sousa 's pieces, but a good deal more 
than is ever rendered in the United States. And I sup- 
pose the German bands understand Wagnerian music 
better than the American bands, just as Sousa can di- 
rect a better two-step or march than a German con- 
ductor. A German municipal band or military band, 
such as plays every night in one of the public parks in 
every city, is as good a band as Sousa or Innes ever 
took on the road. I am not a musical critic, I am 
thankful to say. I like music whether it is good, bad, 
or indifferent. I like grand opera some and light opera 
a great deal. I enjoy a fine band or a poor one, a se- 
lection from Chopin or a street piano. I will follow a 
band, a drum corps or a bagpipe all over town. I am 
even fond of the "Blue Bells of Scotland." Probably 
my recommendations will not be accepted by all the 
musical experts at home after these admissions, but 
I can't keep from saying that German band music is 
the best in this world to which I have been introduced. 

I have written of the growing use of the English- 
American language on the continent of Europe. Here 
at Worms we are stopping at a very Dutch hotel. 
When the waiter came for the first time I went to 
work in German. The construction of a supper bill 



WORMS AND OTHER THINGS. 173 

of fare in German is not easy for me, but I tackled the 
job bravely. I know enough German to order meat 
and potatoes, but my pronunciation is ragged on the 
edges and my verbs are not hitched right and the gen- 
ders of the nouns are only likely to be right one guess 
in three. After I had floundered along for about three 
minutes the waiter gravely and politely interrupted: 
"Won't you please give me the order in English?" 



RICH OLD FRANKFORT. 

Frankfort, Germany, July 24, 1905. 
This is one of the old and wealthy cities of Germany, 
with 300,000 people and a fine country around about. 
It is the place the Rothschilds came from. A few 
years ago when the Populists were pretty much the 
whole thing in Kansas and to be against them was to 
be in the pay of the Rothschilds and the Great Red 
Dragon, I was on the Rothschilds' side, and never hav- 
ing received any compensation I thought I would call 
and see what was the matter. It was no trouble to 
find the Rothschild house, for it is described in every 
guidebook and is marked by an inscription on the front. 
The morning after we reached the city we went to 
formally make a call, and found the place to be an old 
and unpretentious building. I rang the bell and asked 
the little girl who came to the door if Mr. Rothschild 
was at home. She ran away and I went on in and part 
way up the stairs, when a man appeared and said 
"fifty pfennig." I told him I was an old friend and 
merely wished to pay my respects — pay nothing else, 
not even fifty pfennig. I talked English and he talked 
German, but I had no difficulty in understanding that 
it would cost me 12 J cents American money to go 
through the house. This I declined to do, and unless 
the gentleman who wanted the fifty pfennig tells Mr. 
Rothschild I don't suppose he will ever know I came. 

(174) 



RICH OLD FRANKFORT. 175 

In fact, I was afterward told that none of the present 
members of the Rothschild family live in Frankfort, 
but have their homes in Vienna, Paris, and London, 
where they dictate the financial policy of the world. 
Only a little over a hundred years ago the law of Frank- 
fort was that every night at sundown and on Sundays 
and feast days all Jews must stay in their own part of 
town, and the gates inclosing their section were locked 
until the following day. As an illustration of how 
rapidly the wheel of fortune turns I was told that now, 
although comprising but one-tenth of the population, 
the Jews handle three-fourths of the business, own 
over half the real estate, and hold most of the high and 
responsible positions in Frankfort, where their great 
grandfathers had no more show than a rabbit. 

Goethe, the great German poet, was born in Frank- 
fort, and we visited the house of his birth and boy- 
hood. His father was a lawyer, but the poet could not 
help that. Young Goethe was a bright lad, and took 
to writing poetry as readily as he did to going with the 
girls; and he kept at both occupations all his life. A 
petty German prince took him under his patronage and 
Goethe never had to work for a living, so he went on 
writing poetry and having a good time until he died 
at the age of 83 years. The Germans love Goethe as 
the Americans do Longfellow, for he was a poet who 
loved his country, his countrymen and his country- 
women, and his works are full of sweet and patriotic 
sentiment as well as being beautiful in construction. 



176 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Goethe and his friend Schiller and the literary crowd 
which followed their lead, made the German language 
classical and correct; and occupy the same place in 
German literature that Shakespeare does in English. 
The "Goethe house" here is under the charge of a his- 
torical society, and has been put in the same shape 
that it was when Goethe was a boy. It is an interest- 
ing place, for it is not only full of mementoes of the 
poet but of the time in which he lived. 

The most interesting public buildings I have seen in 
Germany are here, the "Roemer," a name applied to a 
group of twelve old and picturesque houses. In one 
of these the electors of the German empire (certain 
hereditary princes) would assemble to elect an emperor 
whenever there was a vacancy. After the election 
they would have a banquet and the fountain in the 
public square would run with red and white wine while 
the people cheered and drank the health of the new 
man. This was calculated to make the emperor very 
popular at least that night, but I wonder if the people 
were so enthusiastic when the headache came the next 
morning. These old buildings are well preserved. In 
fact, Frankfort is a city which takes good care of itself 
and is like a prosperous man. The most beautiful 
public garden I have seen is here, the Palm Gar- 
den, and a fine military band gives concerts afternoon 
and evening. Frankfort is not only well off, but old 
enough to enjoy the fact, and everywhere the city is 
made to look as handsome and be as comfortable as 
possible. The best and cheapest eating in Europe is 



RICH OLD FRANKFORT. 177 

in Frankfort^ and that fact has made a deep and lasting 
impression on my heart. 

It is doubtless repeating what has been said before, 
but I cannot help wonder at the industry of the German 
farmers. Of course they were raised right on the place, 
and their fathers and forefathers were farmers. They 
probably don't know anything else, and never expect 
to sell out and move to town. In this fertile Rhine 
country, where there seems to be a model climate, they 
irrigate the land as if it were arid and they fertilize 
and drain and cultivate with the hoe and rake. I 
never believed the story, but it is true. The wealth 
of a German farmer can be gauged by the size of the 
manure-pile in his front yard. No doubt when a Ger- 
man farmer brags on what he has done he does not 
refer to the purchase of a quarter-section of pasture land 
in the next township, but points with pride to the 
large and luxuriant heap of fertilizing substance which 
he can call his own. Instead of farming more land, 
he tries to get more out of what he has than he did, 
and his attempt is a success. He does not have a herd 
of cattle, but he has one or a half-dozen cows which 
live in the other end of the house, and are curried, fed 
and looked after as carefully as members of the family, 
perhaps more so. The cattle are good-looking, smooth 
and polished, evidently well bred, and certainly well 
taken care of. They are much better in appearance 
than the average of American cattle, but the care be- 
stowed upon them easily accounts for the fact. 
—12 



178 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Frankfort is geographically in Hesse, the old state 
from which George III. hired soldiers to fight the Amer- 
icans. In the good old times a little over a hundred 
years ago, a German prince who was hard up for cash 
would rent out his soldiers to fight and be shot at. The 
pay went to the prince, not to the soldier. It is hard 
to believe that such things occurred only a compara- 
tively short time ago, and yet they did. The Hessians 
did not understand American tactics and were not 
much of a success in our Revolution, but they were 
always good fighters in German wars, and the little 
state was a powerful one. Frankfort was a "free 
city," and not under the active rule of the Hessian 
princes. For 500 years it kept its independence of 
any local prince, but in 1866 it was annexed to Prussia. 
The time for the independent cities of Europe was 
ended. 

Besides Rothschild and Goethe, Frankfort is noted 
for the Frankfurter sausages. I was pleased to find 
that this was no legend. In Bologna, Italy, I was sur- 
prised to find no bologna, but Frankfort stood the test. 
There is also a house where it is said Luther preached 
a sermon while on his way to Worms. It is a tobacco- 
shop now. 

In every German city there is an old bridge with a 
history. The old bridge at Frankfort across the Main 
river, which is a good big river and lined with freight 
boats, is mentioned in a document of 1222. It is con- 
structed of red sandstone, and looks as if it would easily 
stand 700 years more. A bridge like that is really 



RICH OLD FRANKFORT. 179 

worth more than an art gallery. The legend connected 
with the bridge is not so bad. It seems that the 
architect who drew the plans and supervised the con- 
struction" had made a mistake in his calculations. He 
came to realize that the span would not hold weight, 
and he could see the ruin of the bridge and his own 
reputation mighty close at hand. Of course he was in 
a terrible state of mind, and when he was at his worst 
the Devil dropped in to see him. The Devil offered to 
show him how the defect could be remedied; the bridge 
built and his reputation saved, if he would sign a 
contract that the first who crossed the bridge should 
become the Devil's propert}^. The poor architect at 
first nobly refused, as most men do when tempted, and 
then fell, as men occasionally do. He signed the con- 
tract, the Devil pointed out the correction in the plan, 
and the great bridge was successfully finished. Then 
the architect had remorse (they always do afterward), 
and nearly went wild with thinking of what he had 
done. But the day the bridge was formally finished 
and turned over, before the mayor and city council 
could get into their carriages after the dedicating 
speeches, a rooster broke loose from a chicken-house, 
ran down the road, across the bridge and went to the 
Devil. Of course the Devil kicked, but the architect 
stood on the letter of the contract, and they all lived 
happy forever afterward. This legend is undoubtedly 
true, for on the middle of the bridge is an iron cross 
with a figure of Christ and on top of the cross is a 
bronze rooster. 



DOWN THE RHINE. 

Cologne, Germany, July 29, 1905. 

The words "Down the Rhine" have a strong sig- 
nificance to everyone who has read history, poetry, or 
romance. From the time when Csesar crossed the 
Rhine to punish the warlike tribes for invading Gaul, 
down to the Franco-German war of 1870, every Euro- 
pean war has been fought more or less in the valley 
of the Rhine. And for 2,000 years whenever the na- 
tions of Europe were not marching their armies to the 
Rhine, the petty princes, potentates and powers of the 
valley were fighting one another. The Rhine is the 
dividing line in Europe. Those who have read these 
letters to The News will appreciate the fact that in- 
stead of going to the large cities of Munich, Berlin and 
Hanover, we began with the Rhine as it flowed out of 
Lake Constance and plunged over the falls at Neuhau- 
sen, and have followed it through the Black Forest 
and Germany on its way "down north" to the sea, and 
will finally watch it mingle its blue into the great salt 
water at Rotterdam and The Hague. 

The last two days we have traveled by boat from 
Biebrich to Cologne, that part of the river which is 
called the scenic or "the castled Rhine," the part of 
which poets have sung and around which history and 
fiction have woven stories and legends in every lan- 
guage. But the Rhine is not only useful for the poet 

(180) 



DOWN THE RHINE. 181 

and the historian; it is also a plain business proposi- 
tion. I am told and I believe that the Rhine carries 
more traffic than any other river in the world. It 
flows through a rich agricultural country, is lined with 
important cities, and especially with manufacturing 
places. Freight rates on the water are cheap. Prod- 
ucts of the farm or vineyard, the shop or mill, placed 
on the boats, are carried with only one transfer to all 
the great markets of the world. 

And now imagine the beautiful Rhine gliding among 
high hills, with every few miles a handsome castle or 
the picturesque ruins of one, with a busy railroad run- 
ning on each bank, passenger and freight trains as 
frequent as suburban trains near Chicago, and two 
endless processions of steamboats, tugs and barges, 
one going, up and one going down. That is the Rhine 
of to-day. The hills and castles reminiscent of the 
past, the black smoke of the furnaces and the shrill 
whistle of the engine the reminders of the present. 
You have to shut your eyes to see either the historic 
or the beautiful and keep them from "telescoping" 
into the practical present. And I will admit that the 
boats and the boatmen, the passengers and the freight 
interested me more than the dead-walls and the ivy- 
covered towers. If you think it over you will realize 
how castles and ruins pall upon your taste. When we 
began the trip we would rush from one side of the boat 
to the other to see a castle and hardly went below for 
lunch for fear we might miss a lofty summit or a 
breasted fortress. At the close of the trip a broken- 



182 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

down abbey or a roofless castle had no charms that 
would compare with a comfortable seat and a cigar. 
I remember well one of the last and largest castles 
we passed , one I had read of and looked forward to see- 
ing. A friend enthusiastically exclaimed: "There is 
the Drachenfels on the other side!" And my coarse 
nature revolted, and I murmured that if the Drachen- 
fels wanted me to see it, the Drachenfels would have to 
come around to my side of the boat. My neck was tired. 

Really a homeopathic close of Rhine castles would 
be very interesting. A thousand years ago some baron 
would build a big stone fortress high up on a hill over- 
looking the Rhine, and up to the discovery of gun- 
powder it was practically impregnable. The baron 
and his followers, according to the rules of the game, 
would divide their time between rescuing lovely maid- 
ens from giants and robbing the merchants and traders 
who passed by. I never heard of a knight or baron 
who worked for a living. History is filled with tales 
of deeds the old knights did for religion or for some fair 
lady, but it is silent or passes over lightly the fact that 
they made their money by robbery and murder, dis- 
guised under the name of expeditions, crusades, knight- 
errantry, and war. But when the inventive genius of 
man made a gun that would shoot through armor and 
discovered that gunpowder could knock down forts, 
the days of chivalry and highway robbery on the Rhine 
were over. The merchants and artisans no longer had 
to hire armies to protect their property and their fam- 
ilies, and the rule of force was followed by the rule of 



DOWN THE RHINE. 183 

shrewdness, a change which may not have brought 
perfection, but has resulted in a show of decency, fair- 
ness and honesty. 

A few old castles transported from the Rhine to 
Cow creek or the Kaw would be helpful to the land- 
scape of Kansas. But there would be no use of string- 
ing them out for a hundred miles. A castle a thousand 
years old is interesting, always provided your imagina- 
tion is good. The best way to enjoy castles is to be- 
lieve everything the books and guides tell you. I am 
getting fascinated with the legends, although I think 
I can unfasten. Now here is a choice legend of the 
castles of the Two Brothers, which stand on neigh- 
boring hills and which I saw early : 

THE TWO BROTHERS. 

Once upon a time there were two brothers, both as 
valiant and noble knights as ever wore armor or robbed 
a traveler. Unfortunately they fell in love with the 
same girl, and as she couldn't accept both and had to 
say she would "always be a sister" to the other, the 
tension in the family circle got very tight. Finally 
the elder brother saw that the maiden loved the younger 
best, so he put his broken heart in his pocket, gave the 
pair his blessing and lit out for the crusades. In those 
days whenever a man lost out in love or was in danger 
of being hung for crime, he went to the crusades. The 
younger brother was very happy for a while, but he 
happened to visit another country and there he fell 
in love with another girl, just as much and as eternally 



184 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

in love with her as with the first one. The second girl 
was wise or else she had been warned of the young 
man's record, for she announced the engagement and 
the marriage followed soon. Girl No. 1 went to a con- 
vent with an aching heart, everybody settled down, 
and even the neighbors quit talking. Just at that time 
the elder brother returned from the crusades, and when 
he heard what had happened he thought it was awful. 
He went to his brother's castle and challenged him to 
fight a duel. The younger brother was worked up over 
the interference of the family in his private affairs and 
was anxious to fight. The two knights met in a plum- 
patch back of the convent and prepared to settle which 
was right. Just as they drew their swords the original 
girl, who had been informed of what was going on by 
some busybody, rushed out of the gate, threw herself 
between the brothers and begged them not to fight for 
her sake. She made such a good talk that they shook 
hands and took a drink together as a sign that it was 
all over. The elder brother offered to marry the girl 
in the convent, but she refused. The wife of the 
younger brother ran off with another chivalrous knight 
and the two brothers were left alone in the world. 
They built the'two castles side by side, and spent all 
their days together hunting deer and wealthy travelers, 
and died without ever flirting with another woman (so 
the legend says). The ruins of the two castles side 
by side are evidence of the truth, of the story. 
¥¥¥ 
"Fair Bingen on the Rhine" was somewhat of a dis- 
appointment, Thousands and tens of thousands of 




THE LEGEND OP COW CREEK. 



DOWN THE RHINE. 185 

American girls and boys have stood up in front of the 

school on Friday afternoons, scared stiff with the awful 

prospect of forgetting the next word, and told their 

school-mates : 

"A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers, 
There was lack of woman's nursing, 
There was dearth of woman's tears." 

And when the same moon shone there that shone on 
fair Bingen on the Rhine, those countless American 
youths have breathed a sigh for the soldier and several 
sighs over getting through. Bingen is a good sort of 
manufacturing town, and the fact that the poet se- 
lected the name because of its rhythm and not because 
it fitted the situation accounts for the success of the 
poem. After some reflection on the subject among the 
storied regions of Europe I have come to the conclu- 
sion that it is the romancer and the singer who make 
a country great and interesting, and not any special 
merit of the place itself. If Cow creek had a few 
legend-writers in a few years it would rank with the 
Rhine, the Black Forest, and even the fields of old 
England. How would this do for a Cow creek legend, 
a la Europe? 

LEGEND OF COW CREEK. 

Once upon a time there lived on the creek a wealthy 
old farmer who had a beautiful daughter. The fame 
of her beauty spread all the way to Sterling and down 
to Pretty Prairie, and many young men aspired to the 
honor of her hand in marriage. Among those who 
loved her was a neighbor boy who had nothing to his 
credit but a good name and a rare ability to make 



186 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

speeches before the literary society which met every 
other Friday night at the school-house. As the good 
name was no good on a check, he knew the old farmer 
would not listen to his suit but would likely kick him 
into the middle of next week if he asked him for his 
daughter. So all the poor young man could do was to 
see her home occasionally after church and talk about 
the soulfulness of love and the communion of congenial 
souls. The young lady really preferred the aforesaid 
young man, but as she did not want to undertake the 
job of making a living for two or more, and she knew 
her father would never consent to taking him to board, 
she could only sigh and pine and sit in the shade of a 
cottonwood tree and dream of love. At last the father 
told his beautiful daughter that he had selected a hus- 
band for her, a man from Nickerson, a man who owned 
two sections of land and a lot of oil stock, but who could 
not tell the difference between true love and a pain in 
his side. That night the two young people met down 
by the creek bank and she told him of the fate in store 
for her unless he got a move on himself. Their plan 
was formed. That night the lover braced himself 
with a good "bracer" and met the maiden behind the 
barn. Away they went toward the county seat with 
high hopes and enough cash to purchase a marriage 
license. Suddenly they heard the gentle murmur of 
the father, who had discovered the elopers and was 
telling the people for miles around what he would do 
to the son of a gun who was running off with his daugh- 
ter. It was a race for love and for life, but the old man 
was getting the best of it and the lovers could hear him 



DOWN THE RHINE. 187 



as he was overtaking them. They came to the creek, 
which was on its annual flood, and then they gave 
themselves up for lost. But the young man happened 
to look around and saw an old cow. An idea came into 
his head. He drove the cow into the creek and each 
of them grabbed her tail. She swam straight to the 
other side while the old man stood on the bank cursing 
a blue streak. Away they went to town and were mar- 
ried by the probate judge before the flood went down 
and the old man could get across. 

There was nothing for the father to do but to give 
them his blessing and eighty acres of sand-hill land, on 
which they lived happily ever afterward. The stream 
which thus saved the lives and loves of those two young 
people has been called Cow creek ever since. 

If the people of Kansas will take a few stories like 
the above, have them trimmed up and embellished, 
tell them to visitors and charge admission to see the 
relics, they will have as good a collection of legends 
as ever grew on the Rhine. 



COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS. 

Cologne, Germany, July 29, 1905. 
This is the place the eau de cologne habit started. 
There are over forty manufacturers who advertise 
themselves as "the original house" that first made 
this perfumed water. A few miles below here on the 
Rhine is the Apollinaris spring. I always supposed 
Apollinaris water came from the drug store, but there 
really is an original spring. It got its name from St. 
Apollinaris, who was a prominent church- worker a 
thousand years ago, and had his head chopped off by 
the heathen. The head is still preserved in a church 
and his name goes marching on with a label on the bot- 
tle. The highest cathedral I have seen in Europe is at 
Cologne, the top of the spire being 510 feet above the 
ground. It is a beautiful cathedral of Gothic archi- 
tecture. The plans were made and a good part of the 
structure completed about eight hundred years before 
it was finished, the latter part of the job being done 
only a few years ago. The legend of the beginning of 
the cathedral is very authentic. The architect had 
spent several years on the drawings, but was not able 
to finish them satisfactorily to himself or the building 
committee. One night he had a dream, and in the 
vision saw just what had been lacking. But when he 
awoke he could not remember the design, and as is 
usual in such cases he said he would give anything to 

(188) 



COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS. 189 

have it. The Devil promptly showed up and offered 
to reveal the wonderful plan if the architect would 
sign a contract to give in payment his own soul and 
also the soul of the first who should enter the church 
after it was completed. The architect tried to beat 
the Devil down on the price, but could not ; and finally 
signed. The Devil lived up to his part of the contract, 
and the completed plans were so beautiful that the 
church authorities and the emperor and the city coun- 
cil were unanimous in declaring the architect the great- 
est man in his profession. As the church neared com- 
pletion the architect began to worry. He took to drink, 
and went around carousing so that his friends thought 
he was crazy. Finally he confessed to the archbishop 
and it got into the newspapers, so the community was 
stirred up. No one was willing to be the first to go 
into the church, and yet if the great cathedral was to 
amount to anything, somebody must enter it. Finally 
a bad woman who was confined in jail sent word to the 
church board that she would be the victim. After due 
deliberation, and believing that she would go to the 
Devil anyhow, they accepted her offer. The day of 
dedication came. The people gathered from far and 
near. A carriage drove from the police station and 
backed up to the church door. Out of the wagon and 
into the building dashed a female form and the Devil 
in great glee grabbed, and broke its neck. But it was 
only a pig which the smart bad woman had fixed up 
in her clothes. So the Devil was cheated, the cathe- 
dral was dedicated, and all went right except for the 
architect, who was found with a broken neck and smell- 



190 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

ing of sulphur, for the Devil in his rage didn't do a thing 
to him. 

Cologne has over 300,000 inhabitants and is a very 
busy city. This morning we went to the market. The 
grocery stores in Cologne and in all the German cities 
I have visited practically never keep green groceries. 
Everything of that kind is bought at the public mar- 
ket, which is a very interesting sight. From all the 
country around come the farmers and the farmers' 
wives with the produce of the garden, and from all 
over the city come the housewives or the maids, each 
with a big basket. The trading is brisk, and as it is 
nearly all done by women on both sides, there is some 
talk and the shopping habit is seen in all its glory. 
Then there is the fish market, the flower market, the 
poultry market, and even the old-clothes market. I 
am sure that in the big market-house and on the streets 
and the square in Cologne this morning there were 
two thousand vendors of goods, from potatoes to sec- 
ond-hand hats and from luscious fruit to old candle- 
sticks, — nearly everything conceivable that could be 
brought to the open-air market and sold. The market 
is still retained in a few old American towns, but to me 
it is a novelty with a never-fading charm, and in nearly 
every city where I have stopped the market has been 
a sight that I did not miss. 

Next to the market the restaurant or beer- and wine- 
garden is the place to see the people. The Germans 
eat breakfast, dinner at noon, supper at 6 o'clock, and 



COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS. 191 

once more about 10 o'clock. From 7 o'clock to 10 
o'clock the whole family sits in the public garden drink- 
ing beer or wine (not much, but long), listening to the 
music and getting hungry for the fourth meal of the 
day. There are restaurants everywhere — in the pub- 
lic buildings, the art galleries, the churches, on the 
sidewalks, and in the parks. I have not been to a 
German cemetery, but I would confidently expect to 
find there a garden with tables where one could get 
something to eat and drink. 

¥¥¥ 
The valley of the Rhine for more than a hundred 
miles is one vast vineyard, and the word valley in- 
cludes the hillsides. The hills are high. The vines 
begin close to the water's edge, the vinevards being 
sometimes terraced and sometimes on a slope so steep 
that the men and women who cultivate them must 
wear climbers like telegraph linemen. It is a beautiful 
sight at this season of the year with the lofty heights 
clothed in green and pointing up into the blue sky, 
with brown old ruined taverns and castles and white 
chateaus and villas here and there among the green. 
One would wonder what could be done with all the 
grapes that must come from such a great vineyard if 
he did not look around him and see everybody drinking 
the juice and evidently endeavoring to keep pace with 
the production. At Coblentz the Moselle river joins 
the Rhine, and it is another charming valley full of 
history, poetry and grapes. Coblentz is old and quaint, 
with narrow streets, old-fashioned people, and the ap- 
pearance of ancient days. 



192 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

On this trip I have seen a good deal of the German 
people. The class distinctions are about all that make 
them different from Americans. The poor folks al- 
ways expect to be poor and do not move around with 
the aggressive action that ours do. I suppose I talked 
with a hundred, and every one of them wanted to come 
to America. Mechanics and artisans, very skillful, are 
not altogether satisfied with conditions, and they, too, 
talk America. But the great middle class of farmers 
and merchants are as full of patriotism and conceit as 
are true American citizens. They think Germany is 
the greatest nation on earth, and that all the countries 
will eventually admit the fact and take subordinate 
places. They don't like America or England, and they 
expect sometime to have war with us unless we give up 
easier than they anticipate. The typical German is 
not slow or easy-going, as he is often painted, but is 
energetic, pushing and "chesty." He thinks Germany 
can lick the United States with one hand tied behind, 
and is ready to have the work begin any time. In 
fact, Germans are just as offensively and ignorantly 
patriotic as are Americans, which is saying a good deal, 
for Americans in Europe nearly always go around 
with a chip on either shoulder, daring somebody to 
knock it off. 

But the Germans are gentlemen. For the first time 
since I left Paris I saw men in the street-cars give their 
seats to ladies. In Italy the rule is for the man to have 
first consideration. It makes American women fu- 
rious when they meet Italian men on the narrow side- 



COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS. 193 

walks to have to get off into the streets and let the gen- 
tlemen pass by. But they must do it or the men will 
simply walk over them. In Germany the women in 
the country work in the fields and in the cities they are 
in the shops and offices more than in the United States, 
but they are treated decently and politely. The Ger- 
man is in fact more polite than the Frenchman. He 
even tips his hat to his man friends. If I go into a 
store to buy a cigar the proprietor or clerk who waits 
on me will say " good-morning " and " good-by. " They 
do this with one another, and do not keep their com- 
pany manners for strangers. German hotels are the 
best in Europe, and one of the customs is during the 
meal at hotel or restaurant for the proprietor to walk 
around and pleasantly greet his patrons, whether he 
knows them or not, on the comfortable theory that 
they are his guests. Germans are always willing to 
guide. and advise strangers and they don't take "tips/' 
at least not any more than in America. Germany is 
wealthy and prosperous as a nation and the Germans 
one meets when traveling are about the best folks 
you find in Europe. 

In Germany a landlord advertises his hotel as "first 
class" or "second class." The second-class hotels are 
clean and good, but they have some mighty funny 
names. I had learned in England not to get worried 
over the signs of "The Red Lion," "The White Bull," 
etc. But German hotel-keepers go still further. They 
name their places after animals of all kinds and colors, 
and often saints and imaginary creatures. The Golden 

-13 



194 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Calf, The Winged Lion, The House of the Weaned 
Calf, The Wild Man, were some of the names, but at 
Heidelberg one extreme was reached by the "Hotel 
Jesus," and at Worms the other extreme by the " Hotel 
of the Two Pairs of Drawers." I suppose every name 
has a story or a legend behind it and the name is a val- 
uable asset of the property. Speaking of names re- 
minds me that here in Cologne the street that leads to 
the market-place is called " Kingdom of Heaven street," 
and not far away is the "Grace of God street." I can 
see how these names might be properly used in Kansas, 
but they are out of place in Cologne. 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 



IN DUTCH LAND. 

Amsterdam, Holland, July 31, 1905. 
The kingdom of Holland is a little bit of a country, 
but it has exerted a great influence in history. In 
size it is 12,650 square miles, not as large as the Seventh 
congressional district of Kansas, but it has over 5,000,- 
000 inhabitants and is busy from one end to the other. 
The greater part lies below the level of the sea, which 
borders it on the west and has been literally reclaimed 
from the water by the energy and work of the people. 
The Hollanders are the Dutch, and they have a say- 
ing: "God made the sea, but we made the land." 
The water is held back by immense dikes, and here 
in Amsterdam I look toward the sea and the great 
lot of shipping along the quay is higher than the tops 
of many of the houses; that is, the water is higher 
than the roofs in the town. The industry which has 
thus driven back and held back the sea has made 
little Holland a wealthy nation and Dutch capital 
has not only built up business at home, but it has 
gone into the farthermost parts of the earth, even to 
Missouri and Arkansas, constructed railroads, started 
factories and earned dividends or gone into the hands 
of receivers in large amounts. The country is covered 
with canals about as Kansas is with section-line roads. 
These canals are used for commerce, carrying freight 
cheaply, and for drainage, irrigation, and in place of 

(197) 



198 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

fences. Every farm has its little canal leading to a main 
canal as a farmer's road in Kansas goes out to the 
main traveled road. The farmer brings his stuff to 
town in a canal-boat, and a farm-wagon is almost 
as rare a sight in Holland as a canal-boat is in Kan- 
sas. In wet seasons the canals are used as drains 
and in dry seasons as irrigating-ditches. Canals are 
built above the level of the land, so that irrigation 
is easy, and for drainage the water is collected in 
ditches and pumped up into the canals. All of these 
facts I had read about, as has everyone else, but to 
actually see such a country was like a dream come 
true. 

There is more sky in Holland than anywhere else. 
The land is flatter than a Kansas prairie. The scenery 
would be absolutely nothing if it were not for the works 
of man upon the surface. There are no hills in Hol- 
land, no rushing streams, no picturesque bits of nature. 
Some of the land looks lower than the rest, but none 
looks higher, and the water from the big rivers that 
enter Holland on the east simply oozes through the 
soil and canals, without a perceptible current and really 
without river-beds or water-courses. The Rhine 
spreads out until it is fifty miles wide, but it is no 
longer a river, — merely a network of canals which 
it supplies with water, and its old channels are now 
made by dikes and drainage into farms and town- 
sites. The landscape thus becomes a flat, fertile 
country, mostly farmed in grass and pastured with 
cattle and sheep, a lace- work of canals in shiny streaks 



IN DUTCH LAND. 199 

running in every direction, narrow red brick houses 
with white trimmings, and windmills which tower 
above everything else and stand like giant sentinels 
over the low and level country. These windmills 
are big, fifty to a hundred feet high, the lower part 
usually used as dwellings, constructed as strongly 
and stoutly as government buildings, and with four 
immense arms or sails which convert the Dutch 
zephyrs into horsepower. The windmills are used 
for grinding grain, sawing lumber and in all kinds of 
manufacturing, as well as to pump water from the 
low ground to the canals and into the sea. A Kansas 
windmill compared to a Dutch windmill would be 
like a straw beside an oak tree. 

Very often in Europe I have been compelled to 
draw on my imagination to make the actual facts 
come within speaking distance of what had been 
written or promised about a country. Not so in Hol- 
land. Everything I have ever read about dikes, 
canals and windmills is true, and nothing you have 
been able to imagine is beyond the real existing con- 
dition and appearance. 

Yes, there is one thing, and I wonder if other people 
would feel the same way. In the pictures and on 
the china the windmills, the cows and even the people 
have always been blue. Of course I knew better, 
but when I found that a Holland landscape was not 
blue and white, I felt as if I had been deceived. The 
sky is blue, but the windmills are browned with ex- 
posure, the cows are black-and-white, and the people 



200 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

are not any more blue in Holland than they are in 
Newton. 

The ride from Cologne, Germany, to Amsterdam, 
down the valley of the Rhine, which is no longer pic- 
turesque or lined with castles and legends, gave me 
my introduction to Holland. Most of it is the kind 
of country in which a traveler can enjoy reading 
a good book. After the first enthusiastic demon- 
stration over windmills, — and they are more nu- 
merous than telegraph posts along the Santa Fe, — 
and the excitement of watching canal-boats having 
died out, Holland is not a country that causes 
thrills. There is a strange effect created on seeing 
a canal-boat in a canal a little distance off. You see 
a sailboat or a steamboat apparently sailing right 
through a pasture. You can't see the water, and the 
effect is as if ships were really gliding over the grass 
and fields. 

The canals are generally at least fifty feet wide and 
at least six feet deep. There are many good-sized 
boats. The power used is of different kinds: steam, 
sails, horses, men, women. Steamboats are numer- 
ous. Sails are used on nearly all, at least to help. 
Very often a man is hitched to a rope and sometimes 
a woman, with a regular harness so that the pull comes 
on the breast and shoulders. Dogs are not used to 
haul canal-boats, but they are the usual motive- 
power in the towns for small deli very- wagons, milk- 
wagons and the like. 




CANALLING IN HOLLAND-THE EXTENSION OP WOMAN'S SPHERE. 



IN DUTCH LAND. 201 



The people of Holland, especially outside the cities, 
stick to their old peculiar costumes better than do the 
people of any other country in Europe that I have 
seen. The originals of the quaint Dutch pictures 
are here and numerous. The women wear the foolish 
bonnets, funny short full skirts, woolen stockings and 
wooden shoes, and the men the odd hats, clothes that 
bag between the hips and knees, and the wooden shoes 
that turn up like sled-runners. The wooden shoes 
are not worn in the house, but shaken off as the per- 
son enters and a pair of cloth shoes substituted. I 
suppose that is a ground rule made by the Dutch 
housewives, whose propensity for scrubbing and 
cleanliness is well known. But in spite of the de- 
served reputation, I do not think that Holland is as 
clean a country as it is advertised. The canals are 
close to being stagnant water, and as all the dirt and 
sewage goes into them there is an odor about Hol- 
land that comes near the smell you get from old cheese. 
Especially in the towns and cities where the canals 
form the principal streets, I can't escape the idea 
that they are a good deal like open sewers. The 
water is changed by pumping, but not often, and 
after it stands a while over the stuff thrown in one 
one would think from the noticeable odor that it 
would breed sickness. They say it is not very bad, 
but it would cause a big kick in America — the news- 
papers would go after the city council a plenty for 
permitting such a nuisance, 



202 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

A good deal has been said and written in the United 
States of recent years in regard to the "emancipation 
of women." The extension of civil and legal rights 
to persons of the female sex has been properly the 
subject of general congratulation. The club move- 
ment has done a great work in forcing a recognition 
of the work of women equally with the work of men. 
Prior to coming to Europe I had supposed that the 
women of the United States had made more progress 
along these lines than those of any other country. 
But I was mistaken. The women of Europe are far 
ahead of the women of America in the equality of 
the sexes. A women in continental Europe not only 
has the right to go out in the field and labor, but she 
can work on the roads, and she can engage in any 
business that a man can. In Italy I saw women 
harnessed alongside of dogs and in Holland I find 
them harnessed to canal-boats, the same as men. If 
there is any kind of work in Europe that a man can 
do in which women cannot and do not engage I have 
not discovered it, except the occupation of wearing 
military uniforms. The mercantile and shopkeep- 
ing business is almost entirely given over to women, 
and the right to carry trunks, shine shoes, sell papers 
and act as porters is not denied them. The men 
seem to be perfectly willing to let the women do the 
work, and the emancipation seems to have been ac- 
complished without trouble of any kind. 

The Dutch language is more like the English than 
like the German, with which it is classed. With my 



/AT DUTCH LAND. 203 



little knowledge of German I can read the Dutch 
signs and make a stagger at the newspapers, for there 
is more English than German in the written words. 
But the Dutch as a spoken language is like neither 
the German nor English. When two Dutchmen 
have a social, quiet chat it sounds like a buzz-saw. 
I can usually make a Dutchman understand me, but 
when it comes to my grasping the meaning of his talk 
I had as soon try to interpret the remarks of a file. 
It is ridiculous the way you have to change language 
every few hours' ride in Europe. But I quit trying 
when I came to the Dutch. They will have to talk 
English or make signs in order to get my money; and 
again I am brought to the conclusion that no matter 
what is the language of the country, "money talks." 



THE DAM DUTCH TOWNS. 

The Hague, Holland, Aug. 2, 1905. 
Before leaving Amsterdam we took a trip through 
several little Dutch villages and to the island of 
Maarken, where the fisher- people continue to wear 
their eighteenth-century costumes in the progressive, 
stylish twentieth century. As a very pleasing inci- 
dent of this journey we happened to reach Maarken 
at the same time with Queen Wilhelmina, so we not 
only got to see a live queen but in the excitement in 
the village escaped the attention usually given to 
American tourists by a thrifty people who have curios 
to sell. Queen Wilhelmina was a disappointment. 
I had been prepared to see a charming girlish sover- 
eign, and I guess I was looking for something like a 
bright American girl with her hair hanging down her 
back. The queen is only 24 years old, but she looks 
30. She wore a cheap-looking white suit which prob- 
ably cost 30 cents a yard, American money. Her 
face was faded and so was her hat. She has large 
feet, wears coarse shoes, and her stockings wrinkled 
around the ankle like a fisherwoman's. The stolidity 
of the Dutch was too much for me. The queen 
walked through the village, and while everybody 
turned out to see her there was not a cheer. When 
she passed the little group of a half-dozen Americans 
we took off our hats and gave a loud hurrah, just to 

(204) 



THE DAM DUTCH TOWNS. 205 

show our friendship. She didn't smile or look around, 
and we felt as cheap as she looked. In appearance 
she is sad and uninteresting. In America a governor 
or a president would have smiled and spoken cheer- 
fully. But the queen of Holland does not have to 
run for reelection, and I suppose that has a salutary 
effect on American statesmen. I will confess right 
now that my observations of European nobility 
have been made at a distance. I have not been 
mingling with the dukes and counts, but have re- 
ceived most of my impressions from the hotel 
clerks, the hackmen, the storekeepers and the work- 
ingmen. They are always glad to talk or make 
signs to Americans, and I have not met one laboring 
man who did not say he wanted to come to America. 
In the smoking-rooms and around the hotels I have 
talked some with the so-called "upper classes." They 
don't like America or England. I think the rulers 
of continental Europe and all the lords and valets 
are afraid America and England are going to combine 
with Japan and rule the world. The leading news- 
papers are full of that kind of talk, and while it is 
laughable to find that they think the American people 
are planning an invasion of Europe, it has a satis- 
factory side in the fact that it shows they think we 
could do it if we tried. The ruling classes are hostile 
politically to America. On the other hand, the work- 
ing people are very friendly. The kings and nobles 
know that their jobs would not last long under Ameri- 
can ideas. And the workingmen think that America 
means a chance to earn more than a mere living. 



206 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Both classes have instinctively taken a position on 
the American question, and I don't blame them. 

Amsterdam is the biggest city in Holland and is the 
capital, but the queen and court reside at The Hague. 
Amsterdam is rich in commerce, but is beneath the level 
of the sea, rather unsightly, and perhaps unhealthy. 
The Hague is about as high as the sea-level and is on 
real land, not the drained and reclaimed sort. It has 
some beautiful streets and thousands of acres of woods 
which are kept in comparatively original condition 
and used for parks and drives. The two cities are only 
an hour's ride apart, and The Hague is becoming the 
residence city for wealthy Dutchmen. Amsterdam 
is one of the financial centers of the world. The 
Hague is one of the political centers of the world. 
On account of its size Holland is not considered dan- 
gerous, and therefore presents a convenient meeting- 
place for international conferences. We visited the 
palace known as "The House in the Woods," where 
the peace conference was held in 1899, on the sug- 
gestion of the czar of Russia, and in which twenty- 
six governments were represented. The actual re- 
sult was not much, but an international court at The 
Hague was provided to which nations can submit dis- 
puted questions if they wish, and probably after the 
Japs get through with the czar so he can call another 
peace conference, further steps will be taken to pre- 
vent or mitigate the horrors of war. Andrew Car- 
negie, the same gentleman who put up the money 
for the Hutchinson public library, has promised 



THE DAM DUTCH TOWNS. 207 

$1,500,000 to erect an international court-house at The 
Hague which will be a suitable place for what might 
be called an international supreme court. One great 
weight which every European power has holding 
down its progress is the necessity of maintaining a 
large standing army and thus withdrawing from active 
production a big per cent, of its workers. The govern- 
ments of Europe know this and talk of "disarming," 
but each one is afraid the others won't do it. And I 
also have a guess coming that some of the kings and 
queens would worry a little over the future of their 
jobs if they did not have the big armies at their com- 
mand. 

The Dutch are a hard-working lot. They get up 
earlier than the people of any other country I have 
seen in Europe. And as the entire family works, 
from the grandmother to the dog, they accumulate 
wealth as a nation and as individuals. The ordi- 
nary dwelling is part of the store, the shop, the barn 
or the windmill, so that the women-folks can do their 
part of the labor and not lose much time going back 
and forth. Whenever the women are not attending 
to the farm or the shop they are scrubbing. ' The smell 
of good strong soap is one of the real Dutch land- 
marks as much as a windmill or a canal. 

From Amsterdam we went to Edam and Monniken- 
dam and Volendam and Zaandam, and from here we 
go to Rotterdam and through several other dams. 
The affix "dam" means bridge or embankment, and 
in a country of canals it is not surprising that nearly 



208 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

all the names of towns end with dam, Amsterdam be- 
ing on the bank of the Amsel river, and so on. When 
I was a boy I heard the story of the teacher who was 
having her class give sentences containing the words 
they were learning to spell. One day they came to the 
word " cofferdam/ ' and the teacher asked the bright 
boy of the class to frame a sentence illustrating the use 
of the word. He wrote on the blackboard : " Our old 
cow thought some sawdust was bran, and if she don't 
look out she will cofferdam head off." The word 
"dam" is not a cuss-word in Dutch. If it were, all 
the dam towns would be printed with a dash for the 
last syllable. 

The history of Holland has about as much trouble 
in it as that of any country. It was not much of a 
nation during the dark and medieval ages, as there 
was no such state, but a number of petty vassal lords 
and bishops. About 1500 a Holland count got the 
title of Prince of Orange by marrying a French heiress. 
The principal ruler in Holland was the count of Bur- 
gundy, but the Dutch cities developed along business 
lines and were to a certain extent independent of kings 
and emperors, although nominally a part of the German 
empire. In the sixteenth century Philip of Spain in- 
herited the sovereignty of the country, and by his 
bigoted and cruel rule started a civil war in 1568 which 
lasted eighty years and ended in the independence of 
Holland. During that war the Dutch had to have a 
leader, and so they elected William, prince of Orange, 
as stadtholder, or governor. Under his management 



THE DAM DUTCH TOWNS. 209 

the war was fought successfully, and when he was as- 
sassinated his son was elected stadtholder. The Dutch 
were divided into two parties, the Democratic and 
Aristocratic, and when Spain was defeated there was 
trouble between them. The so-called Dutch Republic 
was only an aristocracy, the privilege of participating 
in the government being restricted to a privileged class 
of small nobles and wealthy families. The office of 
stadtholder was elective, but generally went to the 
Oranges. Holland by its wise statesmanship and a 
strong navy was a world-power for a while, and in al- 
liance with England and Sweden generally defeated the 
French and Spanish, and when there was war with 
England the Dutchmen held their own. Finally Wil- 
liam III. of Orange became king of England, and the 
Dutch Republic lost its prestige. In the eighteenth 
century it was a tail to the English kite, and in 1806 
Napoleon made his brother king of Holland and five 
years later annexed the country to France. After 
Napoleon's defeat the European powers created the 
kingdom of Holland, joined Belgium to it, and made 
William of Orange king of the united country. The 
Belgians broke away in 1830, and since that time Hol- 
land has been a monarchy, although the power is with 
the people. 

I was much struck with the apparent lack of loyalty 
to the queen. In England everybody is loyal to King 
Edward because he not only represents the sovereignty 
of the nation, but he stands for the English constitu- 
tion, rights of parliament and the people, and the king 

-14 



210 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

is the result of centuries of English thought and po- 
litical action. But the Dutch have been without a 
king most of their history and they don't feel the rev- 
erence for the crown that the English do. Wilhelmina 
is not very popular, and her husband, who is a second- 
rate German prince that never mixes with the people 
and is said to be mean to his wife, is not liked at all. 
The Dutch cities have practical self-government, and 
it would not be surprising if after the death of Wilhel- 
mina or in the event of some political upheaval the 
Dutch Republic would be revived on a broader basis 
than before. 



Rotterdam, Holland, Aug. 3, 1905. 
To-day we came to Delft, where the Delft china does 
not come from any more, and from there to Rotterdam 
in a canal-boat. Riding in a canal-boat is a very 
pleasant way of traveling. If you want to get off, the 
boat simply runs up close to the bank and you make it 
with a jump — one jump is better than two. You glide 
along through the pastures and back yards and see the 
women scrubbing, the men smoking and the dogs pull- 
ing the carts. When you come to a low bridge every- 
body lies down flat until the boat is beyond it. Our 
canal-boat was propelled by steam, and we went fly- 
ing along at the rate of five or six miles an hour, but still 
with plenty of time to inspect the country and visit 
with the people on the other boats if we could only have 
talked their language. As a cure for nervousness or 
as an antidote for being in a hurry I recommend a trip 
on a canal-boat. 



THE DAM DUTCH TOWNS. 211 

Delft is a quaint old town, with old churches and 
clean canals. Two hundred years ago the manufac- 
ture of porcelain made the town famous, but for a hun- 
dred years the business was suspended and now most 
of the Delft china is made in New Jersey. Recently a 
factory has been started and real Delft ware can be 
obtained, but the American kind is just as good. 

The canal-boat brought us through the town of 
Schiedam, where the celebrated Dutch "schnapps" is 
made. They tell me schnapps is closely related to 
that brand of American whisky which will make a man 
climb a tree. There are 200 distilleries in Schiedam. 
The Dutch are given to strong drinks rather than beer. 
The result is that the Dutch get wildly and meanly 
drunk, whereas the Germans merely get fat. 

Near Rotterdam we canalled by Delfthaven. This 
is the place from which the Pilgrims sailed for North 
America in 1620. They stopped en route in England, 
but their original start was from here. They had come 
to Holland from England in order to secure freedom of 
worship, but they were still Englishmen and did not 
want to become Dutch. So they secured a promise 
that they would not be disturbed in the New World, 
and left their Holland home. If they had stayed in 
Delfthaven there would have been no New England, 
no Bunker Hill, no United States. But they did not 
stay. 



THE KINGDOM OF BELGIUM. 

Brussels, Belgium, Aug. 5, 1905. 
I do not suppose other people are as ignorant as I 
was, but I will admit that in my mind I have always 
lumped off Holland and Belgium together as two coun- 
tries with the same kind of people, the same language, 
the same habits and generally the same government. 
This is a great mistake. Holland and Belgium are 
about as unlike as the United States and Mexico. 
Holland is Dutch, with a language related to the Ger- 
man and English, and with Teutonic characteristics. 
Belgium is allied to France, the people speaking French 
or a kind of French, and with traits of character like 
the Parisians. Holland and Belgium have never agreed 
well politically and have never lived together har- 
moniously. When the allies had defeated Napoleon 
they created the kingdom of Holland and Belgium and 
tried to tie the two together. The combination lasted 
just fifteen years, and in 1830 the Belgians revolted, 
declared their independence and fought successfully 
to make it good. This year they are celebrating the 
seventy-fifth anniversary of Belgian independence. 
Two hundred years ago the king of Spain was sovereign 
over both countries. Holland threw off the yoke and 
did business on its own account, while Belgium failed 
and remained the property of Spain or Austria down 
to the time of Napoleon. The Hollanders drink 

(212) 



THE KINGDOM OF BELGIUM. 213 

"schnapps" and the Belgians drink wine. The Hol- 
landers are Protestant in religion and the Belgians are 
Catholics. Except for the fact that they are side by 
side along the North sea and are flat and low, the two 
countries differ in about everything possible. 

The largest city in Belgium is Antwerp, located on 
the Scheldt river a little way from the sea, and with one 
of the largest and best harbors of Europe. During the 
Middle Ages Antwerp was a great commercial city, 
monopolizing much of the trade with the Orient, and 
beuig known everywhere for its wealth and business. 
In the eighteenth century, under Spanish and Austrian 
rule, the city lost its standing and went down to about 
40,000 population. During the nineteenth century it 
had a boom; now there are 355,000 inhabitants and 
Antwerp looks like a great American city, — with many 
wide avenues, beautiful buildings, and handsome stores. 
Aside from the fact that the streets are often narrow, 
a modern city in Europe looks better than one of the 
same size and standing in America. The Europeans 
have better ideas of architecture, put up their buildings 
more substantially and with more regard to their ap- 
pearance, and have less of the cheap and shoddy con- 
struction than we do. I suppose we have as good ar- 
chitects in America as in Belgium, but I know of no 
city in our country where the business blocks are so 
elegant or so well built. Our folks build in a hurry. 
Over here they build for centuries, because they have 
already had centuries and know that is the way to do. 
I haven't seen a frame house except in Switzerland. 



214 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

When people build with stone they are apt to put the 
work there to stay. And these modern European 
cities, by which I mean cities which have kept pace 
with the world's growth and are not simply living on 
history and tourists, have many large squares with 
monuments and fountains, parks with gardens and 
boulevards with drives, — all over the city, not simply 
where the rich folks live as in some American cities. 
I reckon I am as conceited about my country as any- 
body, but I get it taken out of me every now and then, 
and modern city-building is one of the places. It 
would pay our town-builders to take a little more time 
and do better, more substantial and more tasteful 
work. 

Brussels is the capital of Belgium. If all the suburbs 
were taken in as in Chicago and New York, it would 
have a half-million people. It has the reputation of 
being one of the handsomest cities of Europe, and is 
called "the second Paris." It has many wide ave- 
nues, beautiful shops, and the people, like those of 
Paris, are great on having a good time. Nearly every 
other store in Brussels is a lace store, and most of the 
rest are jewelry stores. There are said to be 150,000 
women in Brussels and vicinity making lace for sale, 
and they are paid by the shops for which they work 
about 20 cents a day. The country round about is 
fertile, but the farming is more what we would call 
market gardening. The picturesque costumes have 
disappeared, and the Belgians dress and act more like 
French and Americans than any other European peo- 



THE KINGDOM OF BELGIUM. 215 

pie I have seen. Their farm labor is still crude. There 
is no machinery, and there need be none so long as 
labor is cheap. The dogs pull the carts to town with 
the truck for market and the working-people live on 
fish and vegetables because they are used to it and be- 
cause meat is away beyond their means. 
*** 

To-day I went to the battlefield of Waterloo. It has 
always been a matter of regret to me that Napoleon 
did not win that fight. The big powers of Europe had 
combined and forced his abdication. They sent Na- 
poleon to Elba and were quarreling over a division of 
the spoils when he escaped and returned to France. 
The people received him with joy and his old soldiers 
rallied to his standards. The allies ran hither and 
thither and were scared almost to death — all but the 
English, who never know when to quit. Wellington 
with about 70 , 000 soldiers was near Brussels and Na- 
poleon rushed his army of the same size to meet him. 
If Napoleon had defeated Wellington the backbone of 
the alliance against him would have been broken and 
the map of Europe would have been very different 
from what it is. The battlefield is comparatively 
small. The two armies had a front of about two miles 
and were less than a mile apart. In those days a can- 
non could not shoot a mile and a musket not more than 
150 yards. After the first firing the guns had to be 
reloaded, so as a matter of fact there would be a few 
volleys and then the opposing armies would clinch and 
go at it with bayonets, clubbed muskets, and swords. 
That was the way at Waterloo. Napoleon made the 



216 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

attack and Wellington's army had the help of stone 
walls and position. In a space of about forty acres 
around one farmhouse there were 6,000 killed and 
wounded. Both sides fought like the devil, or rather 
like devils, and took few prisoners. The English allies 
held their ground all day, beating back the frequent 
and ferocious French charges. In the evening the 
Prussian army under Blucher came slowly up at one 
side and the outnumbered Frenchmen had to retreat. 
It was all over with Napoleon, for his army was dead 
or missing; so he again gave up, and this time his en- 
emies were careful to put him at St. Helena where he 
could not get away. 

A great monument was erected on the battlefield 
by the victorious nations. It is a mound of earth 150 
feet high, pyramid-shaped, and a half-mile around the 
base. On top of the mound is a figure of a colossal 
lion. The mound is the highest point for many miles, 
and from its top the entire battlefield is easily seen. 
It is a very impressive sight. When the great mound 
was constructed the earth was carried in baskets by 
women who were paid 8 cents a day. That kind of a 
price for labor makes a steam shovel sick. The people 
who live around the battlefield have a rich tourist 
crop. Although they are Belgians I think some of them 
are descendants of Napoleon's soldiers, judging from 
the way they charge. Just about the time the visitor 
gets excited or interested in the historic spots, he is 
reminded that there is "something for the guide," or 
that he can buy maps, picture cards, bullets, buttons 



THE KINGDOM OF BELGIUM. 217 

from Napoleon's coat, or get a drink of water from the 
well in which the bodies of 150 French soldiers were 
thrown. 

Belgium is one of the busiest countries in Europe, 
but labor is really not better paid than elsewhere. A 
laboring man gets 30 cents a day, skilled laborers up 
to a dollar. A woman works at lace-making for 20 
cents a day, or a woman will come at 7 o'clock in the 
morning and work until 8 o'clock in the evening, a 
Belgian working-day, for 20 cents. The cost of good, 
decent living is not much if any less than in Kansas, 
but of course people who earn only 20 or 30 cents a day 
don't live well. Their home is with the cow or the dog 
or with people just as poor, and a beefsteak would 
probably give them the gout. I have seen similar 
conditions in the slums of American cities, and once, 
when the tariff bars were thrown down and our fac- 
tories put to competition with Belgian and other Eu- 
ropean factories where labor is paid as I have stated, 
there was a temporary paralysis of labor attended by 
suffering and want. But these are the normal condi- 
tions in Belgium and in Europe at a time which is con- 
sidered one of general prosperity. I wonder how it 
must be with hard times. The "bugaboo" of "com- 
petition with pauper labor" is not a political imagina- 
tion, but would be a sad reality if the American people 
should vote for a change in the tariff policy. I have 
learned this lesson from the mouths and faces of the 
workingmen of Europe. 



218 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Of course there are American-made goods that come 
into Europe. They are all here because the Europeans 
have nothing near as good. The American typewriter, 
the sewing-machine, the Wernicke office supplies and 
the American shoe are always advertised boldty and 
freely. Other American wares are sold without the 
American label because of some prejudice, especially 
in England. In order to show my patriotism I started 
lifting my hat every time I saw the sign or advertise- 
ment of American goods. At first I enjoyed the nov- 
elty, but as I learned to look for the marks I soon had 
my hat off most of the time. I didn't mind honoring 
any American article, but it grew wearisome to have 
my hand bobbing up to my hat whenever I turned 
around, especially as Carter's liver pills and Quaker 
oats have just covered Europe with their posters and 
their catch-lines. When the American does start to 
do business in Europe he does it right, and is not afraid 
to put his name on any place the police will let him. 
And it is comforting to a pilgrim in a strange land to 
see in big letters on street cars and fences the names 
that decorated the old walls and billboards at home. 



EUROPEAN ART AND GRUB. 

Bruges, Belgium, Aug. 8, 1905. 

In this quaint old town we are spending the last day 
of our stay on the continent of Europe. To-morrow 
we sail from Ostend to Dover, and the prospect of a 
return to a land where the English language is spoken 
is next to getting home. 

Of all the cities of the Netherlands, Bruges has best 
held on to the ancient appearance and ways. The 
fact may be explained by the figures. During the 
boom in Belgium a few centuries ago, Bruges had a 
population of 200,000, while now there are only 54,000. 
There was no necessity to tear down the old buildings 
to make room for modern structures or provide wide 
boulevards and promenades. Consequently the old 
buildings stand, only modified in appearance by the 
wear and tear of weather and years. The sole business 
of the town as near as I could see is lace-making, and 
as the women do that there is little left for the men, 
except to drive cabs and hold the offices. We walked 
down a little narrow street, perhaps twelve feet wide, 
lined from one end to the other on this pleasant day 
with women sitting on stools making lace. The ad- 
vent of a few Americans almost caused a riot in the 
desire to see and be seen, and the little street seemed 
to swarm with women and with children. Working 
over the pillow these women make lace to be sold at 

(219) 



220 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

15 or 20 cents for their day's labor. Girls hardly into 
their teens and grandmothers up in the 80's were la- 
boring side by side. One old lady with whom we had 
a most delightful visit, although neither could under- 
stand the other's language, and from whom Mrs. 
Morgan bought some of the handiwork, is 86 years old, 
and yet she cheerfully and ably manipulates the hand- 
shuttles that make the lace as if she were not half that 
age. There is a special provision of Providence that 
nearly always applies. These women of all ages who 
have to make lace or starve, work in abominable light 
and yet have excellent eyesight and never wear spec- 
tacles or glasses. In America, where the lace is bought 
and where such work is a delicate, eye-trying task, the 
women have trouble with their eyesight and must have 
artificial help to see the lace that the Belgian women 
make. The wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. 

Bruges is also the depository of the earliest specimens 
of Dutch and Flemish art, for here nearly 500 years 
ago lived Jan Van Eyck, and he and his brother were 
the pioneers in the style of painting which is generally 
known as "Dutch." They were followed a few years 
later by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, De Crayer, 
Jordaens, and their crowd, who went to Italy and 
learned a good deal, but who were really followers of 
the Van Eycks. I have spent some time in the art 
galleries at Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp and Brus- 
sels, and have picked up a smattering of knowledge of 
Dutch and Flemish art which I would like to unload. 
The "whole shooting-match," as the Germans would 



EUROPEAN ART AND GRUB. 221 

say, is generally called Dutch, but there is a perceptible 
difference between the work in Holland and Belgium, 
although the artists lived so close together that they 
naturally formed one great school. Peter Paul Ru- 
bens, who generally gets first place, was a Belgian, al- 
though he was born out of that country when his par- 
ents were politically exiled. He lived at Antwerp and 
was brought up in a Jesuit school in a Catholic country. 
Rembrandt was a Dutchman, born at Leyden, Hol- 
land, and a politician as well as an artist in a Protestant 
country. If one will reflect upon the religious situa- 
tion in Europe in the early seventeenth century, he will 
see that no matter if both used the same colors and 
the same rules for drawing, they were bound to treat 
different subjects, or have different conceptions of the 
same subject. Van Dyck, the third of the celebrated 
trio, was born in Antwerp, but went to London, and 
there did most of his work in portrait-painting, his 
specialty, because he was better paid by Englishmen. 
The Catholic Rubens and his followers painted for the 
churches and cathedrals, and for a Catholic constitu- 
ency, and usually portrayed religious subjects, while 
Rembrandt and his pupils painted for the Dutch 
burghers, and their best pictures are of men, grouped 
in military companies or trade guilds. Rubens is more 
ideal and spiritual, Rembrandt more material and hu- 
man. Therefore it is that people who like one often 
do not appreciate the other. I really like the Dutch 
art better than the Italian, although it is a good deal 
like a boy trying to decide whether he will have cherry 
pie or custard pie, and wanting both. The influence 



222 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

of environment and education is clearly seen in the fat 
Madonnas and the pictures of public-houses and drink- 
ing-bouts which are favorite subjects. The Dutch ar- 
tists also lean to "realism/' and about nine times in 
ten a picture of the realist school is unpleasant and 
therefore to my mind inartistic. For example, one of 
Rubens 's great masterpieces represents the martyr- 
dom of a saint who had his tongue torn out, and in the 
picture the executioner is handing the red, bleeding 
tongue to a dog. Another picture shows an execution, 
the axeman holding up the head, and the body with 
the stump of a neck the main feature of the foreground. 
Some people like this sort of thing, but I don't. For a 
hundred years after Rubens and Rembrandt, the Neth- 
erlands produced no art, at the time the countries 
themselves were demoralized and the prey of the 
larger powers. Recently Dutch art has revived in the 
portraying of Dutch landscapes, windmills, canals and 
such, and to my mind it is the pleasantest and most 
effective art now alive in Europe, away ahead of the 
Italians, who persist in imitating the old masters and 
tackling subjects which have been thoroughly covered 
so much that there is hardly a chance for a new im- 
pression. 

Every town of any size in Belgium and Holland has 
a public art gallery, and the people ought to be artists 
merely from association. But as a matter of fact 
three-fourths of the visitors to the galleries when I 
was there were Americans and English. 



EUROPEAN ART AND GRUB. 223 

Speaking of art reminds me of hotels. Before leav- 
ing Europe I want to pay a tribute to the hotel-keepers 
of the continent. I must have been wrongly impressed 
by what I had read and heard, for I had looked for- 
ward with dread to the queer ways and the strange 
dishes I was to go against on the trip. As a matter of 
fact the hotels in Europe are better and cheaper than 
those of America. The management is more courteous, 
the service better, and the eating far surpasses the 
equivalent in the United States. The "tipping sys- 
tem " is not bad at all and the effort of the landlord to 
get at your money is concealed by a show of cordiality 
and hospitality which I have never experienced in a 
strange hostelry in my own country. I am overcharged 
and worked ten times more in Kansas City, Chicago 
and New York than in Rome, Cologne, Brussels, or any 
other European city. 

When a traveler arrives at a continental hotel he is 
greeted at the entrance by the hall porter or clerk, and 
instead of being bulldozed over a counter by a gentle- 
man with a diamond stud into paying twice the ordi- 
nary price for a room, he is quietly and pleasantly told 
what rooms are vacant, what are their rates, and al- 
lowed to make a selection. He does not have to tip a 
porter or a bell-boy for every little favor. From the 
proprietor to the "boots" everyone in the hotel is at 
your service and nothing to pay — not then. Of course 
you expect to do the right thing when you leave, but 
for the time this cordial service seems to be sponta- 
neous and animated with a sincere desire for your com- 
fort. In Germany the proprietor of the hotel keeps 



224 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

up the pretense that .you are his guest, and every day 
he inquires after your welfare. In the German res- 
taurants the proprietor walks around and speaks pleas- 
antly to everyone and you feel that he is really glad to 
see you without associating that sensation with the 
payment of the bill. Everything and everybody in 
the hotel is at your service. There is always a reading- 
room with newspapers, often American papers, smok- 
ing-rooms, lounging-rooms, and comfortable parlors 
where it is a pleasure to spend the time. In nearly 
every hotel there is a free library, mostly books of the 
country, but always some in English. At the Parker 
House in Boston, my last stopping-place in America, 
I had been surprised and delighted to find a well- 
selected library for the use of the guests of the hotel. I 
supposed that was a Boston innovation and was pre- 
pared to brag about it, but I have found a similar 
library in nearly every hotel at which I have stayed 
in Europe. An American hotel does not give half the 
space to the general use and comfort of guests that a 
European hotel does, and what it does offer is usually 
only a big office and stiff parlors in which people stay 
only when they can find nowhere else to go. 

European cooking is far ahead of American cooking. 
A cook in this country is not an accident, not a man 
or woman who is cooking until a better job offers. A 
cook is something between a professional man and a 
skilled mechanic, and young men learn the business as 
thoroughly as they do engineering or banking. Labor 
is cheap, so that in the kitchen as well as in the front 
rooms there is always plenty of service, and it is by 



EUROPEAN ART AND GRUB. 225 

people who are brought up to it and not by boys or men 
who are down on their luck. I expected to be "fussy " 
over the cooking and cookery, but I have hardly had a 
poor meal in Europe and not a bad one at all. There 
is not much difference in the stuff used or in the way 
of serving, but the work is better done, and all the 
good American dishes like beefsteak and eggs are 
found in Europe looking as natural as life. The Eu- 
ropeans do more with mutton, veal and fish and less 
with beef than our cooks, and the small farms raise 
vegetables that are delicious. 

When one leaves the hotel the proprietor or manager 
always comes to see him off and say good-by. There 
isn't such a crowd of servants waiting for tips as is 
generally alleged. Your porter, who has polished your 
shoes and carried your baggage, is on hand, and the 
chambermaid casually meets you on the stairs. The 
head waiter expects a tip and so does the hall porter, 
and there are usually a couple of other attendants 
ready to receive, but not obnoxiously so. I learned 
that the best way to do was to be as polite as the Eu- 
ropeans. A few minutes before time to leave I would 
say good-by to the head waiter, the smoking-room at- 
tendant, and any other who had rendered special ser- 
vice, giving each a small tip which he always took with 
many expressions of good-will and appreciation. That 
prevented any assemblage at the door when we left, 
and the last good-bys and tips were only expected by 
the man who brought the baggage and the hall porter 
who put us in the carriage and gave me full information 
as regards the coming journey and the next stop. 

-15 



226 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

The rates at European hotels are much less than in 
ours. The prices for rooms are about half what they 
would be in America for similar accommodations in 
the same-sized places. The restaurant prices are a 
little less than ours. I should say that in Europe you 
pay about $2 to $3 a day for what would cost $3 to $4 
in America. In small hotels and boarding-houses the 
same ratio is maintained , and there is no doubt in my 
mind that "room and board" on a European trip for 
an American is little more than half what it would be 
for a European in America. In these prices I include 
tips. The ordinary American will greatly enjoy life 
on the continent, provided, of course, he does not al- 
ways eat at the "table d' hote," or regular meal-table, 
which is monotonous everywhere. And also he must 
not want a room with a bath, or an elevator. Very 
few buildings in Europe have elevators, and the natives 
do not use them. It is an inconvenience to walk up 
two or three nights of stairs to your room, but in the 
hotels that do not have "lifts" you must remember 
that is the way the nobility and everybody does in 
Europe, and quit kicking. You can get a bath in the 
bathroom or you can scrub yourself with the contents 
of the washbowl, after you have had some experience. 
That is the custom of the country, and the thing to do 
is not to be telling about the rooms with baths in Amer- 
ica, but accept the situation, look pleasant, and you 
will get along all right. It is the same way in Europe 
that it is everywhere else in this vale of tears : if you 
look for trouble you easily find it, and if you are con- 
stantly talking and thinking of the conveniences which 



EUROPEAN ART AND GRUB. 227 

American customs have provided and which are not 
used in Europe, you can make yourself miserable and 
unpopular. But if you accept the ways of the country, 
enjoy the novelties even if they seem old-fashioned and 
strange, you will have a grand old time and will make 
yourself solid with the people. 

In Europe the name "United States" is rarely used. 
We are "Americans." The people of Canada are Ca- 
nadians and the people of the United States have the 
sole use of the title of Americans. They consider us 
the whole thing, and we always admit it without ar- 
gument. There is a general impression in the Old 
World that all Americans are rich. There is a general 
impression that sometime we will fight the rest of the 
world, and I think there is an impression that we will 
lick. So far as I can see, Americans are treated about 
as well as dukes, and the ways of traveling are greased 
for them by everybody along the line. (Grease to be 
paid for, of course.) In two months' travel on the 
continent, usually not knowing the language, we have 
never missed a train or connection, been mistreated 
or imposed upon, allowed to suffer inconvenience or an- 
noyance. That is a record it would be hard to equal 
in America. 



ENGLAND. 



IN OLD, OLD ENGLAND. 

Warwick, England, June 12, 1905. 

When the American tourist reaches old England he 
has a large and well-selected stock of emotions which 
he can feel, in addition to the thanks in his heart that 
the short but "nahsty" trip across the Irish sea is at 
an end. No matter where an individual's ancestors 
may have come from, the mother country of America is 
England. Up to 1776 our history was only English 
history, our customs English customs, our laws Eng- 
lish laws, and when the Continental army began shoot- 
ing at the British soldiers, the Continental Congress 
accompanied every volley with a resolution declaring 
that the colonists had no desire to separate from Eng- 
land, but were only fighting in self-defense. Our laws, 
our language, our literature are English. The fight 
of the parliament against the crown has reached prac- 
tically the same result in England that the revolution 
of Congress against King George did by a short cut. 

This is the land of Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens, 
who are just as much American as English, except for 
the accident of birthplace. This is the home of our 
heroes of medieval times, of Ivanhoe, Richard the 
Lion-hearted, and the Black Prince. This is the coun- 
try which is familiar to us by name and history through 
Scott and Thackeray, Dickens and Lytton, and a hun- 
dred other authors whose works are read in the Amer- 

(231) 



232 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

ican homes. We are not strangers to such names as 
Kenilworth, York, Shrewsbury, Chester, Stratford, 
Oxford, Cambridge, and in fact nearly every town on 
the map of England. This is more like the visit to a 
long-absent friend and not an entrance into a foreign 
land. We are now going among places of which we 
have read and among the monuments and works of 
men whom we have held close to our hearts through 
the pictures painted for us by our authors. We are 
going to actually see the things we have so often read 
about and which we have so much dreamed about. 

Instead of beginning at London, the great center 
of trade, we are going to begin here at Warwick, the 
center of the oldest Old England left on earth. In 
Warwick we are five miles from Kenilworth, the castle 
Scott made famous, seven miles from Stratford-on- 
Avon, where Shakespeare was born, and surrounded 
by beautiful rural England, with a fine old castle only 
five minutes walk away, and churches and buildings 
which were old when Columbus discovered America. 

The first stop in England was at Chester, which was 
a town of importance when Julius Caesar was doing 
business. The walls the Romans built were demol- 
ished by the Saxons but rebuilt, and Chester was the 
last place in England to surrender to William the Con- 
queror. During the Middle Ages it was the scene of 
more fights and sieges and the walls then completed 
are the same walls which we walked on this week. 
The walls are from ten to twenty feet wide at the top, 



IN OLD, OLD ENGLAND. 233 

twenty to thirty feet high, and little towers occupy the 
angles and corners. From the wall of Chester Charles 
the First saw the parliamentary army defeat his sol- 
diers, and when Chester surrendered, Cromwell's men 
had all of England. 

There are two main streets in Chester, crossing each 
other at the center of the town and terminating in the 
four city gates. All the other streets of the old town 
are alleys from six to ten feet wide. But the curious 
part of Chester is "the Rows." Along a good part of 
the main streets there is a second floor, or rather a 
stone roof over the sidewalks. On this upstairs street 
are stores and shops, and business is going on as briskly 
along the second story as on the ground floor. As 
there were originally but the two streets in Chester, the 
people simply doubled the street capacity, — a thousand 
years ago and they haven't changed. In fact, I sup- 
pose a great many people in Chester who have never 
been out of the neighborhood, think that is the proper 
and usual way of arranging business streets in all 
towns. 

*** 

The greatest place in England is Stratford-on-Avon, 
because Shakespeare was born there. A great many 
English towns have ancient cathedrals and are the 
birthplaces or the deathplaces of kings and queens, 
dukes and ministers, but Stratford is the only place 
where Shakespeare was born and there has been but 
one Shakespeare. Many great men have several birth- 
places, or perhaps I ? should say, several towns claim to 
be the only birthplace. But Stratford-on-Avon is a 



234 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

thousand years old or more, and has never done any- 
thing for the world except to provide William Shake- 
speare, and the world says that is enough to last another 
thousand. I stood in the church and saw the slab 
which covers the dust of the great poet and man- 
knower. By his side are the graves of his wife and 
daughter. Around the chancel are the inscriptions and 
memorials which tell of the admiration and affection of 
the world. 

The house where the poet was born is now owned by 
a public association, and great pains have been taken 
to gather all the relics of his lifetime that have been 
spared. The rooms are arranged just as they were 
when his father, a highly respected tradesman who 
reached the dignity of a justice of the peace, was run- 
ning his little shop and William was poaching in the 
neighboring fields and streams and sparking Anne 
Hathaway, whose home was a mile away. The Hath- 
away cottage is kept in the same way as the Shake- 
speare house, and we wandered through the low rooms 
and up the narrow stairs just as they were nearly four 
centuries ago. In talking with an Englishman at War- 
wick he said he believed the Americans thought more 
of Shakespeare than the English did, for more of them 
went to Stratford. Of course that is hardly correct, 
for the English all love Shakespeare, but they probably 
do not visit his birthplace so much as American trav- 
elers do. Practically every American goes to Strat- 
ford, some of them perhaps just because the others do. 
Coming over on the ship I was being enlightened by an 



IN OLD, OLD ENGLAND. 235 

aggressive American on just what was what. " Going 
to Stratford?" he said. I assented. "Yes, you'll go 
there and look around and wonder what in hell you 
went there for." But that is not the sentiment which 
fills the hearts of most of the cousins from across the 
ocean, as is evidenced by the reverential awe and the 
thorough appreciation of every nook and corner shown 
by them when they are in the historic village. 

The river Avon is about the size of Cow creek, and 
looks a good deal like it. The banks are low and the 
meadows and fields come right to them, without the 
timber that borders most American streams. The 
town of Stratford is old-fashioned and quaint. Just 
as in Warwick, the hotels or inns bear such names as 
"The Red Dog," "The Bull and Cow," "The Golden 
Lion," a style of nomenclature which I had always 
half-way thought was imaginary with the great authors 
who have made such names familiar. Large, stately 
trees line the roads and stone walls and hedges conceal 
the fields and farms, revealing just enough to enhance 
the beauty of the landscape. One can dreamily think 
as he rides in the coach from Stratford to Warwick 
that he is back in the days of Queen Elizabeth and half 
expect ye knights and ladies to appear before the gate 
of Kenilworth, but as he does so there is a sudden 
whir-r-r, a cloud of dust and a smell, and the automo- 
bile of the twentieth century has rudely broken the 
dream. 

We visited the castle of the earl of Warwick. The 
earl evidently did not know we were coming, for he 



236 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

was away, but a shilling admitted us through the big 
gate in the massive stone walls which surround the 
castle and inclose probably twenty acres of ground. 
It was originally built by a daughter of Alfred, about 
915, and has been more or less knocked down and built 
up since. It is said to be one of the finest old castles 
in England. A regiment of soldiers could easily pa- 
rade in the large court within the walls and be quartered 
in the building and towers. Many a time such a gar- 
rison has occupied the place, for the earls of Warwick 
have been fighters from the beginning and Shakespeare's 
Warwick was a regular Cy Leland or a Stubbs in his 
day, and was known as the king-maker. The castle 
is about twice as large as the Hutchinson Reformatory, 
and the earl has to keep a good deal of hired help in 
these times of peace. Many of the great rooms are 
kept just as in the old days of chivalry and are filled 
with armor and weapons. The banquet-room is main- 
tained as it was in the great earl's time, and much of 
the castle is really a museum and gallery full of the 
pictures, portraits, furniture and tapestries of the long 
ago. 

Kings and queens, earls and earlesses, have walked 
the halls and had their brief time upon the stage of 
life. The noble of to-day does not have the armor or 
the power he did then. His band of armed retainers 
has changed to a crowd of peaceful laborers. He does 
not lead his men to war, but presides at country fairs 
and acts as dignified asjthe! spirit of the twentieth 
century will permit. Hejnoyonger fears a midnight 
assault from a neighboring baron, but only dreads the 



IN OLD, OLD ENGLAND. 237 

ravages of the American tourists and sensibly compro- 
mises by letting them ravage at a quarter apiece. The 
times of chivalry are gone. 

"Their swords are rust; 
The knights are dust ; 
Their souls are with the saints, we trust." 

Here in Warwick and at Kenilworth we take a long 
dream backward, and by working our imagination and 
our sentiment we see the England of Shakespeare, of 
Warwick, of Ivanhoe. It is a good dream, but it is 
a past that will never return, a past that is more nearly 
connected with the present in Warwick than at any 
other place. It is old England, which first learned to 
rule herself and then began to rule most of the rest of 
the world, and with the assistance of the American 
child will undoubtedly do the business in the future. 
We are going to London and Liverpool, the castles of 
commerce and industry which now command the trade, 
of the globe. In the England of to-day the castles of 
the business man and the banker rule in the place of 
the castles of the baron and the earl, and old England 
has given place to a new England. But it will be 
this old England of Shakespeare, Warwick and Kenil- 
worth that will live in the hearts of the English people, 
and will be the object of pilgrimage for Americans 
abroad. 



THE GREATEST OF CITIES. 

London, Aug. 11, 1905. 
We are "out of season" in London. "Everybody 
is out of town." I suppose there are only about 
7,000,000 people left within the limits of the city as 
laid out for police purposes. With only 7,000,000 
people in this district twenty miles square, one nat- 
urally feels lonesome. I suppose it will strike me that 
way after I get used to it. But if as many of the in- 
habitants of London as there are people in the State of 
Kansas should go away, it is probable that I would not 
notice it at first. It is curious what funny first impres- 
sions one gets of things. My first of London was that 
it looked like a great big ant-heap with the ants excited 
over something and swarming in every direction. The 
long processions or streams of people which wind in 
and out, up and down, make the individual feel 
mightily insignificant. In comparison my memory of 
Chicago is that it looks like a deserted country town 
on Sunday afternoon, and New York a fairly large and 
busy village. 

The streets of London are laid out with no regard 
for plan or regularity. None of them are straight, and 
in the course of a few blocks they will be intersected 
at every angle and possible curve by other streets, 
which in turn are cut into by more streets. Every 

(238) 



THE GREATEST OF CITIES. 239 

now and then there is a "square," or a "circus/' either 
meaning a place where different streets meet head-on 
and usually stop. A "circus" is a curved square and 
not a show. A map of London looks like a chicken- 
yard in which the hens have been very busy scratching. 
The stranger loses all idea of direction. When the 
sun shines, which is not often, I have seen it in the 
north, south, east arid west on the same day. 

There are no "sky-scrapers." The height of build- 
ings is regulated, and I think the limit is usually six 
stories. This is a rule which our American cities ought 
to have but they won't. The climate has the effect of 
making a new house soon look old, and London is 
neither bright nor shining in its appearance. But it is 
the greatest city in the world, and that fact is impressed 
on the traveler in every direction. There are more 
Irishmen in London than in Dublin, more Scotchmen 
than in Edinburgh, more Jews than in Palestine, and 
in its population are large colonies of people from every 
country on the earth. Name any article you want or 
have ever heard of, and it is in London. No business 
and no trade in any civilized land but has its repre- 
sentative in this city. No great work is done and no 
enterprise attempted but the fact is known to some one 
in London. In spite of the great growth and wealth 
of America, the industry and success of Germany, the 
thrift and saving of France, the financial center of the 
world is in London, and other bourses and boards of 
trade follow the lead or are in fact only branches of the 
English concern. Every active financial institution in 
the United States or elsewhere has its London connec- 



240 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

tion through which it draws when it engages in inter- 
national business or\when|it goes out of the local 
sphere of influence.^ London is the whirlpool to which 
all the world contributes and from which all the world 
gets something thrown out. 

London is not only the center of business but of 
literary, artistic and political activity. Especially is 
this true for Americans. All of our history prior to 
1776 is English, and in the annals of the world 1776 is 
only the day before yesterday. Our writers, as soon 
as they get their feet on the ground at home, look to 
London, this clearing-house of literature as of money. 
London writers, from the time of Shakespeare to Dick- 
ens, Thackeray and Kipling, are ours just as much as 
they are England's. Not an American but recognizes 
the names of Piccadilly, Hyde Park, Westminster, 
Temple Bar, Ludgate, the Tower, Tooley street, Lon- 
don Bridge, Charing Cross, Drury Lane, Whitechapel, 
Billingsgate, and other streets and places in London 
as familiarly as he does those of places in the nearest 
city to which he lives. A common history for more 
than a thousand years, a common literature which can- 
not be divided, and a common trend of religious and 
political thought make Great Britian and the United 
States one people although divided by an ocean and by 
arbitrary political lines. I think that up to a few 
years ago there was much prejudice in each country 
against the other. That has now practically disap- 
peared. Englishmen on the continent and at home 
have fraternized with us Americans at every oppor- 



THE GREATEST OF CITIES. 241 

tunity, and no place in London that I have gone but 
I have been received with unmistakable heartfelt kind- 
ness. 

After getting comfortably settled the question comes 
to the tourist ; "What first?" And there is so much in 
London we want to see, that it was a question. I sup- 
pose we answered it as every American would, West- 
minster Abbey. There we spent our first afternoon. 
I had been afraid of disappointment. I may say I am 
getting used to finding things which sounded and 
seemed big when viewed from Kansas, actually getting 
small and ordinary when right before us. But it was 
not so with Westminster. The present building was 
put up by Henry III., in the thirteenth century to take 
the place of the structure on the same spot erected by 
the Saxons soon after the year 1000. A few towers 
and facades were added a century later, but for prac- 
tically 400 years this grand church has been the na- 
tional memorial hall of the English people. Although 
tombs and monuments are on every side, the spacious 
church is used for service every day, and it is an agree- 
able memory now that we joined in the afternoon 
service that day in the hall where kings are crowned 
and where they are buried, and where men greater 
than kings have been laid away after their work was 
done. 

The church is very large, the form of a Latin cross, 
beautifully proportioned, rather gloomily lighted, but 
impressive in appearance. Of course it was originally 
Catholic, but being the state church it went Protestant 

—16 



242 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

when Henry VIII. turned against the pope, partly be- 
cause the pope would not recognize his divorce machine. 
There are not many statues of saints, but up one side 
and down the other of the double aisles and the little 
chapels are monuments, usually statues, of the men 
whose names are England's greatness. I do not mean 
the kings and queens, for most of them would not by 
their own merit deserve the honor, but such as these: 
The Pitts, father and son, who ruled in England a hun- 
dred years ago; Fox, Peel, Cobden, statesmen of the 
world ; Beaconsfield and Gladstone, not far apart now ; 
Wilberforce, the philanthropist; Darwin, Newton and 
Herschel, the scientists ; Livingstone, the African ex- 
plorer, and Gordon, the general ; Andre, who was shot 
as a spy in America; John and Charles Wesley, the 
Methodists; Watts, the hymn- writer; Handel, the 
composer, and Jenny Lind, the sweet singer of a gen- 
eration ago ; Addison, Macaulay, Thackeray, and Dick- 
ens; Chaucer, Ben Jonson, and Tennyson, poets lau- 
reate; Booth and Garrick, the actors; Spenser and 
Dryden, and many other poets; — a great aristocracy of 
learning, and now in the democratic, barrier-razing 
grave. Then there are nearly all the great English 
generals of the last four centuries, with heroes 'whose 
names are familiar to American school-boys as to Eng- 
lish. And in the chapels are the tombs of England's 
rulers from Edward the Confessor, some great kings 
and some little kings, some good and some bad, sur- 
rounded by the graves of queens and lords and ladies 
with the familiar names of English nobility. Near the 
tomb of the great Queen Elizabeth is that of her rival 



THE GREATEST OF CITIES. 243 

whom she executed, Mary Queen of Scots, the remains 
of the latter placed there by her son, King James, who 
by the irony of fate succeeded his mother's enemy. I 
could go on with the list, but it would be with the 
reader as with the visitor, only the general effect, with 
here and there some great name singled out from the 
rest because of special interest or connection with some 
great event. And a fact which impressed me was 
that many men and women were executed by one 
monarch and their remains brought to Westminster 
and monuments erected to them by the next. 

In Westminster Abbey the kings and queens of 
England have been crowned since the time of its build- 
ing. A sovereign may inherit or receive from the rep- 
resentatives of the people the royal power, but he is not 
fully authorized and empowered to perform the duties 
of the job, or, to paraphrase a slang expression, his 
crown is not on straight until he receives it here. 
There are times when the great church is brilliant with 
light and resonant with music, when gay uniforms and 
gowns fill the galleries and aisles, when bells peal mer- 
rily and the banners wave from choir and column, con- 
cealing for the day the monuments and tombs of the 
past with their lesson of the end to earthly greatness 
and the fate of human pomp and grandeur. 

The way to see London is from the top of an omnibus. 
There are no electric or cable lines or any other above- 
ground means of transportation in London except cabs 
and 'buses. The underground railroad, called "the 
tube," is useful for quick traveling from one part of 



244 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

the city to the other, but the 'bus is the ordinary con- 
veyance. It has regular seats on top, and they are 
always occupied except when the rain comes in tor- 
rents. An ordinary drizzle rain does not bother a 
Londoner. The sight of the long line of omnibuses 
with people filling the tops of every one of them is in 
itself a show. I am told there is not an hour in the 
day when there are not 100,000 people on top of the 
London 'buses. We have found that we can learn and 
see more of London sitting next to the driver of a 'bus 
in an hour than we could in a day with a carriage and 
guide. The driver is always glad to trade you all the 
news about the street for a sixpence, and a London 
'bus-driver is a man of intelligence and learning; he 
has to be in order to drive through the jam of traffic 
and not get lost in the crooked streets. It was like 
reading a story when we rode down the Strand past 
St. Paul's and the Bank of England to the Whitechapel, 
as the driver pointed out the house where Peter the 
Great lived when in England; William Penn's old 
home ; Somerset House, where queens have lived ; the 
theatre in which the great actors of to-day appear, 
Covent Garden; Garrick's house; the rooms which 
Dickens described as David Copperfield's at Miss Trot- 
wood's; the Temple, England's great lawyer factory; 
the grave of Goldsmith; the inn where Johnson and 
congenial sports dined and drank; and all kinds of 
places mentioned or described by Dickens and Thack- 
eray, or connected with the history of England. I am 
not writing a guidebook, but I can make affidavit that 
a ride on a London omnibus is the quickest and easiest 



THE GREATEST OF CITIES. 245 



way I know to fill one's head with a jumble of litera- 
ture and history, as well as to test the elastic qualities 
of the neck. If I were to advise a tourist coming to 
Europe I would not only tell him to read in advance 
and bring plenty of money, but he should have all the 
rubber possible between his head and his body. 



AT KING EDWARD'S HOUSE. 

London, Aug. 14, 1905. 
We have spent the day at Windsor Castle, the fa- 
vorite home of Queen Victoria, and indeed of British 
monarchs for several centuries. King Edward and 
Queen Alexandra were not at home. We had not ad- 
vised them in advance of our intention to visit them, 
and Edward had gone off to a hot-springs resort to 
recuperate from the festivities of last week, when he 
was entertaining the French navy. The queen is vis- 
iting her folks in Copenhagen, and none of the royal 
family were at the depot. However, we went direct 
to the castle, and, opening it with the usual key (a 
shilling) , we wandered around in the big and beautiful 
rooms, tramped through the stables and saw the horses, 
and enjoyed the beautiful view of the valley of the 
Thames from the terrace on which Queen Elizabeth 
used to stand and shoot deer which her gamekeeper 
drove in front of her. King Edward and Queen Alex- 
andra have a right pretty place at Windsor, but it takes 
a lot of help to keep it up. There are fifty men em- 
ployed in the stables alone. The queen is a good house- 
keeper, as can be told from the well-polished floors, 
the shining brass and the absence of dirt and dust from 
the walls and furniture. Windsor Castle is about three 
times as big as the Reformatory. Part of it was built 
over 800 years ago by William the Conqueror, and it 

(246) 



AT KING EDWARD'S HOUSE. 247 



has been added to by nearly every sovereign. It was 
a favorite place with Henry VIII.-, and one of his wives, 
Anne Boleyn, was confined and executed in Windsor. 
At the time, Henry was over in the next county waiting 
until Anne was dead so he could marry another, which 
he did within forty-eight hours. The kings and queens 
in those days were often tough bats and acted scanda- 
lous. They couldn't do it now, at least in England. 
A few years ago the people of England were worked up 
over a gambling scandal in which the present king, 
then Prince of Wales, was implicated. But King Ed- 
ward has shown himself to be a model monarch, and he 
and the queen are both popular. 

A king does not have an easy job. He has to attend 
state banquets, preside at the laying of corner-stones, 
and ride in state on great occasions, always look pleas- 
ant when he is in public, and eternally be entertaining 
somebody from somewhere that he does not care about. 
This does not sound so bad, but when you read, as you 
do in the English papers, just what the king does every 
day and realize what a grind it must be after the nov- 
elty is worn off, you begin to feel sorry for Edward. 
No wonder he has to go to the hot springs for his health. 
I don't suppose that since he has been king he has had 
a whole week off, and he is getting old. Kings and 
queens have to do everything, from marrying to visit- 
ing, because it is best for their countries and not be- 
cause they want to. Even an independent American 
citizen knows how tiresome it is to do "what is best" 
rather than what you really like, and poor Edward 
never gets a rest. Of course, if the king really had 



248 A JOURNEY OF A J AY HAWKER. 

power there would be some recompense to a man. But 
the king of England has little or no power. He is not 
allowed to have any views on public questions. When 
the Conservative party is in power it speaks for the 
king and when the Liberal party is in power it voices 
the sentiment of the king. This fiction is a part of 
the British constitution, with the further inconsistent 
proposition that the king can do no wrong. If the peo- 
ple disapprove of the public policy they blame the dom- 
inant ministry, and properly so, for the king has no 
more to say on political questions in England than a 
Republican has in Texas. Edward would no more dare 
to take a decided position or make a stand on a govern- 
ment policy than he would get out in the street with 
nothing on but his crown. The people run the gov- 
ernment in Great Britain nearly as much as they do in 
the United States, and the monarchical customs and 
the restrictions and regulations which seem absurd to 
us would be dumped out in the next session of parlia- 
ment if the people wished it. But they don't, for they 
are English and they cling to the old ways. They want 
the king and nobles and are willing to pay the bills. 

But I am getting away from Windsor. It is the big- 
gest and best castle I have seen in Europe. There are 
towers and turrets and moats enough to remind you 
that once upon a time a castle was a fort, and there 
are gardens and terraces and beautiful pictures which 
show that the kings have spent their money, or the 
people's money, with good taste. There are several 
other royal residences in England, but Windsor is con- 



AT KING EDWARD'S HOUSE. 249 

ceded to be the best. It is in a beautiful country, and 
yet it is close to London, so that the king could spend 
a quiet night and in the morning hop on the train and 
in thirty minutes be at his office in the city. And the 
king has a train of special cars nearly as handsome as 
those of a division superintendent on the Santa Fe. 

Our guide pointed out to us a neighboring estate 
which belonged to William Penn, the first owner of 
Pennsylvania, long before Quay's time. Penn got the 
English sovereign to let him have all of Pennsylvania 
at a nominal rent. He then settled with the Indians 
on a friendly basis, and the result was his Quaker colony 
prospered from the start. The contract was that he 
and his successors and assigns should pay to the king of 
England so many beaver-skins annually. There have 
been no payments, so the guide said, since July 4, 1776. 

On our way to Windsor we stopped at Stoke Poges, 
or rather at the church near there, in the graveyard of 
which Gray wrote his great " Elegy." The little church 
stands just as it did when Gray was there about 150 
years ago. The yew tree, to which he refers, is a ver- 
itable monarch, and the woman who shows strangers 
around said it was 900 years old. In the church are 
the graves of Gray and his mother, to whom he owed 
his intelligence and his opportunity. The ivy-covered 
tower looks down over the crumbling gravestones of 

those — 

" Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way." 



250 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Gray wrote a great poem. He never wrote another 
in the same class. His reputation is based on the 
Elegy, and that is enough. It made him famous, and 
he was offered the position of poet laureate to the king 
and declined it. A man who will decline a good job 
like that is almost as rare as a great poet. 

We read the poem aloud out in the graveyard under- 
neath the yew tree. It fitted exactly. Gray had 
touched the springs of sublimity by seeing through 
nature and telling just what he saw, no more. 

In a field near Windsor I saw a mowing-machine, the 
first I have noticed in Europe. Everywhere else the 
hay and grass has been cut by hand. I mentioned this 
fact to the driver, and he was very bitter over the in- 
troduction of machinery because it kept men out of 
an opportunity to work. He told me he was going to 
America just as soon as he could "raise the funds." 
The women do not work in the field in England, at 
least not much. But they are busy in the dairy, at the 
stores and behind the bar in the saloons. In every 
way I found England ahead of the continent in its 
ways of doing things, but there is still enough difference 
from our ways to make them seem queer. I also have 
a kick coming on another matter. A great many Eng- 
lish people do not speak the English language. They 
think they do, but they not only drop their h's when 
they should be on and put them on where they do not 
belong, but they pronounce the vowels and some of the 
consonants in a manner that would make a dictionary 
turn pale. It is often very difficult for me to under- 



AT KING EDWARD'S HOUSE. 251 

stand them, and they are all at sea over my Kansas 
brogue. Of course this does not apply to the educated 
English people, who only speak differently from us in 
using a broad and pleasant accent. 

Coming down the street on the way home I saw in a 
grocery-store window these signs : " Breakfast eggs, ten 
for a shilling;" "Recommended eggs, twelve for a 
shilling;" "Select eggs, fourteen for a shilling;" 
"Cooking-eggs, sixteen for a shilling." The frankness 
of the signs surprised me. T suppose we have the same 
varieties of eggs in Kansas, but we don't describe them 
so exactly and they all go at the same price. As eggs 
are a staple item on the bill of fare, I am wondering 
to-night whether my landlord buys " breakfast eggs" 
or "cooking-eggs," or just plain "eggs." 

The English money is the hardest to understand in 
Europe. It is based on the shilling, worth about a 
quarter in our money. Four farthings make a penny, 
12 pennies make a shilling, and 20 shillings make a 
pound ($4.80). The usual coins are the J penny, pro- 
nounced "ha-penny," penny, "tuppence, "the 3-penny, 
pronounced "trippence," the sixpence, the shilling, 
the 10-shilling, the pound, called a sovereign; the 
5-shilling piece, called a crown, and the half-crown. 
You add 8 pence to 10 pence and it doesn't make 18, 
it makes "one and six." Add one and six to one and 
eight and it makes three and two — yes, it does ! Fig- 
uring with English money for an American beginner is 
like turning handsprings. 

The paper currency is issued by the Bank of Eng- 



252 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

land, and is made of white-fiber paper. In some way 
I got possession of a ten-pound note and took it into 
a bank to have it changed. The cashier had me sign 
my name on the back. I demurred at first, but as I 
wanted the change I finally did it, remarking to him 
that I was pleased to know that the bank considered 
my indorsement necessary to a bank note of the Bank 
of England. The cashier did not see the joke, for he 
took pains to tell me that it was not to make the note 
better and that a Bank of England note was worth its 
face in gold anywhere. I have had a hard time with 
my alleged jokes. I had a letter of introduction to a 
London banker from a New York banker, and pre- 
sented it in order to get the opportunity of looking 
through an English bank. Wanting to be pleasant and 
friendly, I remarked as he finished reading the letter 
that I had gotten it so that if I had trouble with the 
police I might call on him for help. He gravely assured 
me that he did not think I would have any difficulty 
with the police. He did not see my little joke. Per- 
haps he has seen it by this time, for that was two days 
ago. 



THE TOWER AND OTHER THINGS. 

London, England, Aug. 17, 1905. 
After Westminster Abbey I went to looking for the 
Tower of London. Since I was a boy and read the 
story of the two little princes who were said to have 
been murdered in the Tower by order of their royal 
uncle, I had pictured the Tower as something awful 
and gloomy. As a matter of fact the Tower is rather 
imposing in appearance, and with the improvements 
that have been made in recent years is a fairly decent 
sort of castle right in the city of London. Built for 
a fortress by William the Conqueror soon after his cap- 
ture of England from the Saxons, it was added to and 
used as a royal residence and state prison, mostly the 
latter. Kings and queens have been confined within 
its walls and nobles have been imprisoned by the hun- 
dreds, many of them only finding it a step toward ex- 
ecution. It is now a government arsenal, and contains 
a number of soldiers and a lot of military supplies as 
well as a historical museum. The Tower consists of 
a dozen towers inclosed by a wall and moat, and covers 
thirteen acres. It is really very interesting, and any- 
one who remembers his English history or who has 
read English stories of a few centuries ago can feel 
delightful thrills as he goes up and down the dark 
corridors and stairways, sees the rooms in which so 
many of the great men of England, good and bad, 

(253) 



254 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

spent the time preliminary to their death, or passed 
years in confinement. Kings of England, Scotland and 
France, princes, archbishops and ministers of state have 
carved or scratched their names on the walls and win- 
dow-frames while sojourning here at the expense of the 
state. As a usual thing the executions were held out- 
side the walls so that the public could enjoy the amuse- 
ment, but a few of the noble ladies and some men who 
were very popular with the people were decapitated in 
the little square in the middle of the inclosure, and the 
spot is now marked by an iron tablet. The Tower has 
not been used as a prison since 1820, and since then it 
has been cleaned and renovated so that the only evi- 
dence of the dark old days is contained in the placards 
which the government has put up for the benefit of the 
public. Henry VIII. , who was a bad husband but an 
able monarch, had a fad for the collection of old armor, 
and a great part of the White Tower, the largest of the 
towers in the Tower, is taken up by a splendid exhi- 
bition of the fighting-clothes and weapons of England 
and Europe during the Middle Ages. In another tower, 
Wakefield Tower, is kept a part of the royal regalia, in- 
cluding the crown worn by the king when he is formally 
inducted into office at Westminster Abbey. This crown 
contains 2,818 diamonds, 300 pearls and other precious 
stones "too numerous to mention." The govern- 
ment charges a sixpence to get into this exhibit, which 
is said by the official guidebook to be worth $15,000,000. 
You pay another sixpence to see the re'st of the build- 
ings, including the old armor, the place where the bones 
of the little princes are said to have been found, the 



THE TOWER AND OTHER THINGS. 255 

tower where the Duke of Clarence was drowned in a 
large cask of wine, and all the other beautiful horrors 
that go with the Tower. I never fail to appreciate the 
thrift of these European governments. They always 
charge admissions to the castles, palaces and public 
buildings. What a howl there would be in America 
if the Government should exact a fee of 10 cents to 
visit the White House, or the State, of Kansas should 
charge admission to the Governor's residence at To- 
peka. 

When we went into the Tower the officers at the gate 
made everybody leave packages or boxes outside. Mrs. 
Morgan even had to dispose of her chatelaine bag, and 
when she wanted to know the reason why, learned that 
it was to prevent her carrying dynamite into the Tower 
and blowing it to pieces. The powers of the Old World 
are always looking for dynamiters. 

During our stay in London the French fleet has been 
visiting the British fleet at Portsmouth, and a large 
number of the officers and men have been brought to 
London and entertained. International politics is a 
subject of general interest in Europe. Emperor Will- 
iam of Germany has most of the rest of Europe so 
nervous that even the English and French, foes for 
centuries, are making up to each other. Just as in 
Germany I found a feeling that eventually Germany 
would have a war with America and England, I found 
the same impression here, and as France hates Germany 
more than it does England, the French, with the same 
thing in mind, would line up with the Anglo-American 



256 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

combine. The London papers have had numerous 
articles showing that the combined fleets, armies and 
financial powers of the three countries and Japan could 
lick the rest of the earth to a standstill. The most 
ordinary Englishman is posted on international mat- 
ters as well as the ordinary American is on local State 
affairs. To illustrate the public feeling, at a theatre 
when the ballet-girls were carrying banners of the va- 
rious nations the climax came with the English repre- 
sentatives and the French representatives clasping 
hands and the American dancers waving the stars and 
stripes over them. The audience cheered enthusias- 
tically. 

Speaking of theatres reminds me that London has 
the best in the world. The English people are great 
play-goers, and the city has such a large population 
that a play often runs here for a year. Prices are higher 
for the best seats and cheaper for the cheap seats than 
in America. A parquet seat is called a "stall," and is 
usually $2.50. The "pit" is back of the parquet, and 
is about 50 cents. First balcony is called the dress 
circle, and is about $2. Second gallery is about 25 or 
50 cents. I think the class distinctions account for 
the great difference in prices. An imposition in Lon- 
don theatres is that a charge of 12 cents is made for a 
program, filled with advertising, and no better than 
those given free in America. When the orchestra 
plays " God Save the King " the audience rises. Amer- 
icans get up, too, and as the tune is the same as " Amer- 



THE TOWER AND OTHER THINGS. 257 

ica " the Yankees I know sing " Sweet Land of Liberty " 
while the English are saving the king. 

I saw the procession of the local officials when the 
Frenchmen were here. The sheriff of the county rode 
in a beautiful old-style yellow coach, wore a three- 
cornered hat and a uniform of 200 years ago, with 
powdered wig and sword. The lord mayor of London 
was dressed the same way, with his hair down his back 
in a queue. If the sheriff of Reno county and the 
mayor of Hutchinson had any style about them they 
would not let these English officials outshine them. 
I am told it costs the mayor about a half-million a 
year to hold the office, as his principal duty is to en- 
tertain the city's guests at his own expense. The lord 
mayor is more ornamental than useful. The local 
government is more like our State organization, with 
one legislative body, consisting of 118 county coun- 
cillors elected by the boroughs, and another of nineteen 
aldermen appointed by the council. As London has 
about five times as many people as Kansas and much 
harder problems of administration to be solved, the 
government is a big thing. And London is well gov- 
erned, better, I think, than American cities. The only 
thing that would grate on us is the great amount of 
regulation. You can't build a house or go into busi- 
ness without permission, and then everything must be 
just so. The English people are law-abiding, more 
patient with regulations and rules than ours, and public 
opinion stands for the strict enforcement not only of 
laws but of what seem like absurd red-tape rules. 

—17 



258 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

Hardly any stores are open or business commenced 
until 9 o'clock. Nearly everybody takes one to two 
hours for lunch. Stores close at 6 o'clock and dinner 
is in the evening. Saturday afternoons all business 
houses are shut up, and there are a great number of 
holidays. An American gets nervous over the easy- 
going way of doing business. He is always in trouble 
because he has forgotten it is Saturday afternoon or a 
"bank holiday," or because he can't transact impor- 
tant business between 12 and 2 o'clock. In fact, if he 
wants to, an American can find a lot of things in Lon- 
don to make him miserable and cause him to abuse the 
country. But if he is patient and learns a little of the 
English ways he finds that he may live a little slower 
but he will live just as happily, and probably longer 
if he does as the English do. The American way of 
rushing things is well known and generally discounte- 
nanced in England. They think we are fools for work- 
ing so hard, and resent the rather offensive criticisms 
by the Yankees of their slowness. Perhaps they are 
right. They tell me that on his first visit an American 
always tries to reform English business methods. Af- 
ter that first attempt he tackles the easier job of sweep- 
ing back the ocean with a broom. 



IN RURAL ENGLAND. 

London, England, August 21, 1905. 

We have just finished a trip of a couple of hundred 
miles through southern England in a motor car. In 
France and the United States it is an automobile, but 
in Great Britain it is a motor car. This is a better way 
to see the country than from a railroad train, and not 
so good as walking. If you have a motor car or have 
a friend who has one, that is the best way to travel. 
If you have none and no prospect, a motor car is a de- 
lusion and a mistake. I happened to have a friend 
with a motor car and am therefore on the side of the 
motorists. 

We left London at 10 o'clock in the morning, and 
by night had ridden a hundred miles and taken in 
Hampton Court, Windsor, Reading, Maidenhead, Al- 
ton, and Winchester, besides a lot of little places and 
the country along the way. The English roads are 
just about perfection. The main roads are made of 
stone or gravel with clay on top, rolled until they are 
as smooth as asphalt, and kept free from holes and 
bumps. Every bridge and culvert is of stone. There 
is no need to slow up except for people and other ve- 
hicles. I doubt if America ever has such roads. Per- 
haps in a thousand years, when our country is about 
as old as England, we will have equally as good thor- 
oughfares, but it will be fully a thousand years. These 

(259) 



260 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

English roads were good stone roads before the days 
of railways. They were constructed as business and 
military necessities by the order of the English gov- 
ernment. I don't think Kansas farmers will ever 
build graveled roads on which motorists can make high 
speed and kill the chickens and dogs that don't get out 
of the way when the horn blows. However, Kansas 
farmers could , profitabfy to themselves, improve their 
roads so that one horse could haul a wagon-load in 
place of two horses, and so that the wagon could be 
hauled in muddy times. Such roads would be good 
enough for Kansas automobiles, and by that time they 
will be cheap and every farmer will have one. The 
Romans who conquered and held possession of Eng- 
land from the time of Julius Csesar to several centuries 
later, were great road-builders, and fragments of their 
old military roads still exist. Good roads are a sign of 
civilization. Fortunately, they are not the only sign, 
for if they were, parts of Kansas would be uncivilized. 
We can beat the Old World on a good many proposi- 
tions, but when it comes to roads and highways the 
old country has us skinned a good many blocks. 

This is August, but the woods and meadows of Eng- 
land are as green and fresh as with us in May. An 
English summer as I see it is warm and moist. It is 
not near so warm as in the Mississippi valley, and the 
rain comes nearly every day. Rain does not often fall 
in sheets and inches, but drizzle-drazzles down and 
soaks in so as to do the most good. The English peo- 
ple don't mind the rain at all. It is this moist climate 



IN RURAL ENGLAND. 261 

which covers the walls with ivy and the trees with moss, 
and keeps the verdure fresh and green until the fall. 
Harvest is just now being finished. There is no corn 
in England — although they call barley, wheat and small 
grain generally, "corn." The principal crop is hay 
and oats and barley, a little wheat, and vegetables in 
great quantities. England has 50,000 square miles, 
so it is over half as large as Kansas, but it has 30,000,000 
people, and therefore much of the farming is for market 
truck. As a matter of fact there is very little actual 
"rural life." The villages are so close together that 
it is often hard to tell where one town ends and another 
begins, and a country road is as nearly well settled as 
a city suburb in America. Here and there are vast 
estates, the beautiful show places and curse of Eng- 
land. With millions of people wanting work and thou- 
sands of tenant farmers who can get no title to the soil 
they till, it looks to me like a howling outrage for a lord, 
a duke or a brewer to fence up several thousand acres 
as a shooting-place, and remove from production a 
large per cent, of the land which ought to be doing 
good and providing some Englishman a chance to make 
a living and a home. The English people do not seem 
to mind it at all, and I suppose there is no call for me 
to get excited, but I can't help it. We have gone by 
some beautiful parks, with great stately trees, deer 
grazing 'n herds and pheasants and quail flying at the 
side of the road. These belong to somebody who is 
off for the summer and who got them from his father, 
who received them from the king, who originally stole 
them from the actual owners. 



262 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

For quiet beauty the lanes and meadows of England, 
lined with fine trees and fenced with hedge or stone 
wall, cannot be beaten. The Arkansas valley is just 
as beautiful in June, but in August the Kansas sun can 
be depended on to do business and spoil the freshness 
of the trees and grass. When the wayside is not in- 
closed between high hedgerows, the fence is stone, but 
over the stone grow ivy and moss, out of the cracks 
come grass and flowers, so the coldness and bleakness 
of the rock is concealed. Every English farm seems 
to have a flock of sheep. I always heard the national 
meat of old England was roast beef, but that is a mis- 
take. It is mutton-chops, and every English family 
has them at least once a day if it has the price. Along 
the main roads are little inns every mile or so with the 
peculiar names and signs that are characteristic. Dur- 
ing the day I counted four called "The Red Lion." 
One was "The Headless Woman," and over the sign- 
post was the picture of a woman with her head chopped 
off below the chin. These inns are hotels and public- 
houses, and generally look interesting and clean. I am 
told their prices are reasonable to Englishmen, but they 
charge Americans in an automobile about all the law 
would allow. 

To-day we came from Southampton to Brighton, 
fifty miles along the southern coast. The beach is fine, 
and is the summer resort of England. Years ago roy- 
alty and nobility made Brighton their favorite sea- 
shore place, but the great plain people have gotten into 
the habit of going there in numbers, so the aristocracy 



IN RURAL ENGLAND. 263 

has gone farther, to the continent and to Wales. Nearly 
every one of these old English towns has a cathedral 
and a Roman wall. The Romans were town-builders 
as well as road-makers ; and they never even camped 
for the night without fortifying. The cathedrals were 
mostly built in the Middle Ages, when the church was 
a wealthy business organization with lands and rev- 
enues. They look old and quaint and are generally in 
good taste. When you read about a cathedral or castle 
being a thousand years old you may depend on it that 
if it is still in use it has been "restored." Some of 
these very old cathedrals remind me of the boy's jack- 
knife. The blades wore out and he got new blades. 
The handle wore out and he got a new handle. But 
he still had the old jackknife. A cathedral built in 
the year 1000 may have new walls, new roof, new inte- 
rior and new spire, but it is still the old cathedral, " re- 
stored." 

In a little old English inn on the bank of the river 
Thames we ate our lunch and watched the endless pro- 
cession of boats that passes up and down the stream. 
The ocean reaches up the river as far as London, so 
that it is really an inlet, with a tide that rises and falls, 
and a deep channel for ships. Ten miles above Lon- 
don the Thames is about the size of the Little Arkan- 
sas, and all the way past Windsor, Henley and Oxford, 
historic for the boat-races, it is very little wider than 
Cow creek. By a system of dams and locks the Thames 
above London is really only a canal. There is a path 
alongside, and we saw several young men taking their 



264 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

sisters, or somebody's sisters, for a boat-ride, the man 
walking the bank, pulling the boat with a rope, and the 
lady sitting in the boat. In some countries I have 
been in this summer the woman would have been pull- 
ing on the rope and the man would have been reared 
back in the seat, comfortably smoking a long cigar. 
As a river the Thames above London is not much, but as 
a pretty winding stream, carrying little steamboats and 
row-boats, filled with gaily dressed people, it is a success. 

The place we stopped for lunch was at Runnymede, 
just about the greatest spot on earth for English and 
Americans. It was here in 1215 that King John met 
the rebellious barons and signed the Magna Charta. 
Up to that time the king of England had done as he 
pleased, regardless of law. King John levied taxes so 
heavily that the people could not stand it, and the big 
nobles suffered worst of all. So the barons combined, 
and when the king started out to lick them, his sup- 
porters nearly all went over to the rebels. In order to 
save his neck and his kingdom, John met the barons at 
Runnymede and signed the agreement which is at the 
basis of the English and American constitutions. He 
agreed not to levy any further unusual taxes except by 
consent of the Great Council of the nobles (origin of the 
English parliament), nor to deny or sell justice, and 
confirmed the right of an accused person to a trial by 
jury. 

It did not make any difference if King John repu- 
diated the Magna Charta as soon as he could. The 
principle was established, and while some English rul- 



IN RURAL ENGLAND. 265 

ers after that tried to evade and escape its provisions, 
the English people held to it as their rock of refuge. 
England has no written constitution like ours. The 
English constitution is a growth of custom, laws, grants 
and statutes, and the Magna Charta is the basis on 
which it rests. 

When John met the barons at Runnymede the people 
had no rights that king or baron was bound to respect. 
But John put a provision in the Magna Charta that the 
barons must treat their tenants as fairly as the barons 
wanted to be treated by the king. I suppose John was 
trying to get even with his powerful nobles by thus 
recognizing the common people, and deserves no credit 
for the article. But in a few centuries the develop- 
ment of this idea and the discovery that a musket in 
the hands of an ordinary man could shoot a hole through 
a knight, broadened the Magna Charta so that it pro- 
tects every Englishman. 

One of the things that strike Americans as odd is the 
rule of the road, "turn to the left." This rule is rig- 
idly observed everywhere in England. But when your 
motor car, running at 30 or 40 miles an hour, meets 
another coming at a like speed, and your driver turns 
to the left, the American on the rear seat shuts his eyes 
so as not to see the collision, while a cold chill travels 
down his backbone. Of course there is no accident, for 
the other fellow also turns to the left, but it is hard on 
the nerves. However, a Kansas man in Europe takes 
plenty of nerve with him and he is all right so long as 
his money lasts. 



RAILROADS IN EUROPE. 

Liverpool, Aug. 24, 1905. 

A railroad is a railroad anywhere in the world, only 
it is sometimes different. Every country has its own 
peculiarity in railroads as well as in everything else. 
The first European train we saw was at Queenstown, 
Ireland, and we laughed. It looked like a toy, small 
engine, small coaches and strange in appearance. I 
decided to wait until I had more observations on the 
subject before putting my ideas into a letter, and since 
then have gone from one country to another in Europe, 
traveling first, second and third class, on main lines 
and branch roads, on through trains and accommoda- 
tion trains, and gaining all the knowledge possible for 
an American traveler who gets his information from 
experience. While each country has its peculiarities, 
there are certain ways in common. 

In the first place the European idea of a passenger 
car is taken directly from the old stage-coach. It is 
composed of from three to six compartments, like that 
many stages fastened together. In each compartment 
there are two seats running across the car, facing each 
other, and holding eight or ten passengers. As a rule 
there is no communication between the compartments. 
You get in the little room, the door is shut and locked, 
and there you stay until you get to the next stop, when 
the door is opened if anyone wants to come in or go out. 

(266) 



RAILROADS IN EUROPE. 267 



There is no toilet-room, and no way to go to the smok- 
ing compartment unless you are in one, and no way to 
get out if you are in. I think all third-class cars are of 
this pattern. On the main lines, on a few trains and 
in some cars, there is a corridor running along the side, 
making it possible to go from one compartment to an- 
other, and sometimes there is a toilet-room. This pat- 
tern of cars is often called "American," and usually 
there are extra charges. The cars are short and light, 
with two wheels under each end like wagon-wheels, and 
not the double trucks of our cars. There is very sel- 
dom any ventilation at the top, and as the rule is that 
the passenger next to the window can regulate its open- 
ing, the other passengers can freeze or roast as the case 
may be. In Germany the cars have appliances for 
steam heat, but they do not seem to usually have them 
in England or elsewhere on the continent. Travelers 
carry rugs, blankets and footstones in cold weather. 

And right here let me explain a difference in travel- 
ing that accounts for much of the seeming shortcom- 
ings of European cars. The people in Europe hardly 
ever take long journeys. Sleeping-cars are rarities and 
only carried on a few trains. A European who takes 
a twenty-mile railroad trip thinks he is a "traveler." 
They do not have our magnificent distances and long 
journeys, and therefore do not expect the comforts and 
luxuries which we consider necessities. Almost the 
only people who make what are called "long trips" in 
Europe, that is, ten or twelve hours, are American and 
English tourists, and they are given a shadow of Amer- 
ican comfort on certain first-class trains, for which 



268 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

they pay right well. For example ; Mrs. Morgan and 
I wanted to take the night train from Paris to Mar- 
seilles, twelve hours' ride. One train carried a sleep- 
ing-car. It left Paris at 9 o'clock at night and reached 
Marseilles at 9 o'clock the next morning. Only pas- 
sengers with first-class tickets can ride on it. I bought 
my first-class tickets (nearly twice the second class, 
which is the usual way) , and then asked how much the 
sleeper would be. "Twenty dollars!" In America 
we would have paid $2.50. And this in a land where 
we were told everything was cheap ! I have often been 
heard to rail at the high rates charged by Mr. Pullman, 
but I will be slow to do so again. I lifted up my voice 
to the French agent on the extortion of charging twenty 
dollars for one night, and he shrugged his shoulders and 
said we could go on the day train, — that Frenchmen 
never used the sleeping-cars, and that if the rich Amer- 
icans wanted them they could pay the price. We did 
not buy that sleeping-car, but a few days later, when it 
became very important to hurry to Rome, we gave up 
eight dollars for a sleeper from Genoa to the city of the 
Caesars. A berth in a European sleeping-car is a little 
compartment with two beds, one above the other, about 
the size of pantry shelves. Two people cannot com- 
fortably stand in the compartment, and when one is 
dressing the other has to stay on his shelf or go out in 
the corridor which runs along the side. There is no 
ventilation, and the toilet-room, about as big as a bar- 
rel, is for both sexes. As some American said, there is 
one good thing about a European sleeping-car, and only 
one : you do not mind having to get off at an early hour. 



RAILROADS IN EUROPE. 269 

The railroad language is different in England. When 
I bought a ticket in London I went to the "booking 
office/' and "booked for Liverpool." There is no con- 
ductor, but a "guard," who is conductor, brakeman 
and porter combined. Freight trains are "goods 
trains." The engineer is a " driver." Baggage is " lug- 
gage." A grip is a "bag," a trunk is a "box," and any- 
thing is a "parcel." Nobody calls the stations. When 
you reach your destination you get off, and if you are 
a stranger you are always in trouble wondering whether 
or not you have gone past. I have never learned the 
theory of their tickets. When I "book" I get a ticket 
about like ours. Often no one looks at it or takes it up 
until I leave the station at the end of the trip. We 
rode one day in Italy nearly all day before anybody 
looked at our tickets, although usually it is necessary 
to show them to get on the station platform. It would 
seem as if such carelessness would be taken advantage 
of, but it does not seem to be. One reason probably 
is that in every country it is a crime to ride on a rail- 
road train without a ticket. In America if the con- 
ductor catches you riding without a ticket he collects 
the fare. In Europe he can send you to jail, and I 
don't doubt but he would. In America it is not con- 
sidered even bad morals to beat a railroad. In Europe 
it is a felony. 

I had been told that railroad traveling is cheaper 
in Europe than in America, but it is not. To under- 
stand railroad rates you must remember that popula- 
tion is very dense and traffic heavy, much like suburban 
travel around New York or Chicago. England is not 



270 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

near as large as Kansas, but it has twenty times our 
population. Practically all of the travel is short-dis- 
tance. The same conditions prevail on the continent. 
You can ride third-class, second-class, or first-class. 
In most countries third-class is a good deal like riding 
in American box-cars fitted up with seats. That costs 
about two cents a mile. Second-class means cars such 
as I have described with upholstered seats, and the 
price is close to three cents a mile. First-class means 
plush or leather and a guarantee that your traveling 
companions will be nobility or Americans or fools. 
The first-class rate is about four cents. In most Eu- 
ropean countries no baggage is carried free. You pay 
extra for fast trains, "corridor trains," and for the use 
of toilet-rooms. In order to travel in clean company 
and in ordinary decent style, after you count in your 
"extras," the railroad fare is just about the same in 
Europe as in America, and not as cheap as it is on sim- 
ilar trains in the populous sections of our country. In 
the stations there are separate waiting-rooms and sep- 
arate lunch-counters for first, second and third-class 
passengers. The high-class European can eat his lunch 
with the happy thought that no rude third-class citizen 
is on the next stool. 

But if the European railroads do not do much for the 
comfort and pleasure of the passengers, they are away 
ahead of our railroads when it comes to providing for 
their safety. Accidents are not unknown, but they 
are rare, especially in comparison with the frightful 
wrecks which take place in the United States. Nearly 



RAILROADS IN EUROPE. 271 

every railroad is double-tracked or has three or four 
tracks. The roadbeds are near to perfection. Bridges 
are of stone. Rails are not so heavy, but are stronger 
when the light cars are considered. And every mile 
of European track is patrolled day and night. They 
use a half-dozen section-men and track-walkers where 
we would have one or two, and they pay the half-dozen 
wages that aggregate about as much as the one or 
two. In Italy the track-walkers are usually women, 
and it was a funny sight to see the Dago lady stand 
with a red flag at " present arms " when the train passed. 
Most crossings are overhead or under, very rarely on 
grade. Embankments are built of stone instead of 
mud, and the roadbeds are constructed for centuries, 
instead of being just sufficient to "earn the bonds." 
I was in England when an accident occurred on a rail- 
road, and the next day the matter was brought up in 
parliament and the government was asked what it was 
doing to prevent a recurrence of such a thing. Just 
as the government protects the railroads from beats 
it regulates their conduct for the safety of the traveler. 
In some European countries, Germany, Belgium, Swit- 
zerland and Italy, the government owns the important 
railroads, but in all of them it exercises a strong con- 
trol. If a European railroad would attempt to operate 
a line like some of the jerkwater branches in Kansas, 
the directors would be in jail. The result is that many 
of the conveniences are sacrificed to rigid rules and the 
lives and limbs of the passengers are not in near as 
much danger as in the United States, where competi- 
tion has gone in for comfortable cars and often neg- 



272 A JOURNEY OF A JaYHAWKER. 

lected the track. While the Europeans might copy 
some of our methods, our railroad officials could get 
some information in the Old World that would save 
them lots of wrecks and make their passengers more 
secure in their life and health while traveling in the 
palatial cars. 

As the European does not travel long distances and 
has to pay extra for his baggage, he rarely takes any- 
thing but hand-luggage. All through Europe we have 
journeyed for three months, carrying all of our baggage 
in the car with us. When we reached a station where 
we were to stop there was always a porter on hand to 
carry our half-dozen grips and bags, and for five or ten 
cents put them safely in the carriage that would take 
us to the hotel to the hotel for a quarter. During the 
three months I don't think I carried my grip three 
times. There is always a man standing around ready 
to do such work so cheaply that nobody thinks of car- 
rying his own grips even across a station platform. If 
you have a trunk it is put in a box-car on the end of 
the train, and at your destination you go and get it at 
once. There are no baggage-checks, and you wonder 
the trunks do not get lost. But they don't. 

The station-master always wears a fine uniform, and 
in most countries he is a sort of military officer. When 
the time for departure arrives he rings a bell or blows 
a whistle. The guards close the car-doors. Then the 
station-master whistles again and the train starts, the 
station-master saluting. The engine does not whistle 



RAILROADS IN EUROPE. 273 

or ring a bell. The conductor does not yell "All 
aboard!" The station-master is the whole thing. He 
is an autocrat and has entire control of the train in 
station. 

Trains are rarely late in Europe. The schedule is 
maintained regardless of connections, and therefore con- 
nections are usually made. The railroad rules have 
the same weight as laws and are observed as such. 
Railroad employes are polite. When a porter starts 
down a platform with a barrow of luggage he does not 
try to run over people, or yell "Get out of the way!" 
as in America. He goes slowly and calls out "Make 
way, if you please." Baggagemen do not try to break 
the trunks, and will answer civilly when you ask ques- 
tions. Some of these European ways are not so bad. 

Summed up, these are my impressions of European 
railroads : Cars small, uncomfortable, unsanitary ; road- 
bed fine and management good ; prices about the same 
as in America, and chance of getting to your destina- 
tion much better. 

A passenger train with the long line of little light 
coaches is put over the rails very rapidly in Europe if 
they wish. Many regular trains make fifty and sixty 
miles an hour. The ordinary trains which stop fre- 
quently and carry the third-class cars principally, are 
slow. A freight car, called a "goods van," is about 
the size of a dray. There are not many box-cars, but 
the goods are packed on the open drays and covered 
with tarpaulins. The effect is about like a thresher 
engine pulling a lot of four-wheel wagons and drays. 
It looks "dinky" and is a cause of merriment for Amer- 

—18 



274 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

icans. But the Englishman retorts with some refer- 
ence to an American railroad wreck and we shut up. 
I have learned this summer that while the United 
States is the greatest country on earth, it can still 
learn lessons from the slow-but-sure-going English, the 
sturdy Germans and the energetic French. One of 
these lessons is that fast trains and fine cars ought to 
be supplemented by solid roadbeds and careful watch- 
ing. 

A New York clothing merchant was showing a cus- 
tomer some suits. The man tried on a coat and vest, 
and when the merchant turned his back he bolted out 
of the door. The store-keeper yelled "Stop thief!" 
and called the police. All joined in the pursuit. The 
policeman drew his revolver and began to fire at the 
fugitive. "Shoot him in the pants!" screamed the 
merchant, " shoot him in the pants : the coat and vest 
are mine." 

So when we begin to fire at the defects of railroading 
in the various countries I have to beg the shootist to 
shoot at the pants, the coat and vest and some of the 
faults are our own. 



THE TIME TO QUIT. 

Liverpool, England, Aug. 24, 1905. 
To-morrow we will finish the job of seeing Europe and 
sail for home. Just to be sure that we would not miss 
the boat, we came to Liverpool two days in advance. 
When an American is on his first long stay in a foreign 
country and the time grows near when he is to return 
once more to the land and the people he loves, he knows 
now that he loved them if never before. Strange scenes 
are no longer interesting, castles, cathedrals and cu- 
rious costumes are tiresome, and the only thoughts are 
of the folks at home. Even a man who is ordinarily 
cynical and unsentimental finds his heart beating faster 
as the hours drag slowly by waiting for the time of de- 
parture. It would be a great relief if one could walk 
ahead and be overtaken, but the walking is not good 
in the Atlantic this season, so we are painfully killing 
time and going through the motions of sight-seeing 
while "waiting for the train," or rather for the boat, 
which happens to be the White Star steamship Re- 
public. 

On the way here we spent a day in the town of 
Oxford, Everybody has read more or less of the great 
university and its student life. Of course this is vaca- 
tion-time and the colleges are practically deserted, but 
we wandered through the buildings and quadrangles 

(275) 



276 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

and enjoyed the walks and quaint streets. The phrase 
"classic shades" might well have originated here, for 
the great trees hundreds of years old, the ivy-covered 
walls and towers, the inclosed courts and the low- 
ceiled halls and rooms, all make for a peaceful repose 
that forms a charming setting for the intellectual life 
which ordinarily fills the place. There are twenty-one 
colleges in Oxford, each large in size and impressive 
in architecture. The style is a quadrangle with a large 
court or "quad" within, on which the students 7 rooms 
face, and usually covered with grass and filled with 
stately trees. Each college has from 100 to 300 stu- 
dents, and the attendance at the whole university is 
over 3,000. The "young gentlemen," as Oxford stu- 
dents are called, reside in the college buildings, and 
each has a bedroom and sitting-room. Meals are either 
served in the rooms or in the large dining-hall. There 
are no recitations, and not many lectures. Much of the 
studying is done with tutors. The intellectual effort 
of the student is to acquire sufficient knowledge from 
lectures, tutors and books to pass the examinations. 
The chief courses of study are the ancient languages, 
philosophy, mathematics, history, and either theology, 
law, medicine, or natural science. The range is not 
near so large as in America and they do not go so much 
on what we call "practical studies." On the side the 
men do good work in rowing and cricket, and have all 
the fun of American students, even if they are sup- 
posed to 5 ] be in and with the gates locked every night 
at 9 o'clock. 

The history of Oxford University dates back to 



THE TIME TO QUIT. 277 

Alfred the Great, but the first authentic accounts of 
the work are of the twelfth century. All learning was 
then in the hands of the church, and the first colleges 
were primarily for the education of priests. Kings, 
queens and bishops, interested in learning, established 
first one college and then another, so that by the thir- 
teenth century Oxford ranked with the most impor- 
tant universities in Europe; and then, as education 
extended to other professions, the colleges widened 
their courses of study, and the government, while still 
ecclesiastical in form, became broad and liberal. The 
colleges have large endowments, plenty of money, and 
Oxford and Cambridge haye educated most of the 
great men of England in the last 500 years. 

Liverpool is a good deal like a big American city. A 
hundred years ago it was a small town, but by taking 
the lead in American trade it has become the most 
important port of Great Britain, and, counting suburbs, 
has nearly a million population. Its harbor is a deep 
river, the Mersey, and the banks are solid walls of 
wharves, docks and wholesale buildings. It is a re- 
lief to strike a town where you go to see bridges and 
factories instead of churches and art galleries. Liver- 
pool is a good place in which to taper off from the old 
and the curious to the useful and the active. In our 
hotel here we have electric lights, bathrooms, and an 
elevator that works. Hotels where you go to bed by 
candlelight, bathe in a little tub, and walk up four 
flights of narrow stairs, are interesting and comfortable, 
but they are better for a three months' stay than for a 



278 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

steady diet. Nearly every guest at this, the biggest 
hotel in Liverpool, is an American who is getting anx- 
ious. 

One of the subjects in which I have taken an interest 
on this trip has been that of the prices of products and 
labor, comparing them with those at home. I have 
referred to it frequently, but perhaps a summary will 
interest the practical American who wants to know 
"what it costs/ 7 In the beginning I want to say I 
have not yet found a place where "things are cheap/' 
according to the American standard. The ordinary 
people in Europe get along with things that are cheaper 
than in America and they do without others, so their 
cost of living is not so high. The ordinary artisan or 
mechanic in Europe will live with his family in two or 
three rooms poorly lighted, ventilated and uninviting. 
His rent is therefore cheaper than the American me- 
chanic who occupies a little house of his own and has a 
front yard or a porch. The European mechanic will 
have meat to eat once a week or once a day, and he and 
his family will live on what a great many Americans 
waste — they have to. Therefore he lives more cheaply, 
and so can an American who puts himself and his fam- 
ily on a diet of soup, potatoes, carrots and turnips. 
The ordinary European mechanic is assisted in earning 
a living by his wife and all of his children, while the 
ordinary American mechanic only expects his wife to 
do the housework and look after the little ones, and 
his children are at school until they are nearly ready 
to work for themselves. The American mechanic will 



THE TIME TO QUIT. 279 

make from $2 to $5 a day, while the European will get 
from 50 cents to $1.50. 

Clothing is cheaper in Europe, and there is none 
ready made. The family either is wealthy enough to 
have tailors and dressmakers or makes its own. A 
tailor will get $1 a day wages, a seamstress 25 cents a 
day. A "hired girl" gets from a dollar a month to a 
dollar a week, so if a European has money enough he 
can have servants — but he doesn't have them, and his 
wife and children work out. They don't do this spas- 
modically, or in hard times, but customarily and ordi- 
narily, just as their parents did before them and their 
children will do after them. Shoes are more expensive 
in Europe, and not so good. Cotton goods, such as 
shirts, underwear, etc., are as high or higher. Silk 
goods, kid gloves and perfumery are much cheaper than 
in America. The grades of clothing, etc., are different. 
In Europe the people use ugly and coarse stuff such as 
our people never use. Groceries are at least as high 
in Europe as in America. Meat is higher. You can 
get a "square meal" in the ordinary American small 
town for a quarter. You can't do it in Europe, but 
you can get some soup and bread and carrots for ten 
cents. 

The ordinary American workingman figures that by 
working hard, being economical and having a careful 
family, he can save enough to be comfortable, educate 
his children and give them as good a chance as any- 
body in town. The ordinary European workingman 
figures that by working hard, being economical and 



280 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

having all his family at work he can escape the poor- 
house, and his children can have the same chance 
he has had. 

Of course the best prices are paid in the big cities, 
as in our country, and I will illustrate by some of my 
own experiences. 

In London at one of the finest shops I had my hair 
cut and shampooed. It cost me 12 cents American 
money, and in Hutchinson w T ould have cost me 50 
cents, in New York at least 65 cents. The barber told 
me that most English workingmen could not afford to 
pay 6 cents (or 4 cents in a plain shop) and therefore 
cut their own hair. 

I could have had a tailor make a suit in London for 
$12 or $15 that would cost me $30 in Hutchinson or 
$40 in Kansas City. The American tailor can figure 
out how it is done. But here is a thing that pleased 
me: The swell shops in London advertise "American 
tailoring." A European tailor sews beautifully, but 
he can't fit. The wealthy Englishmen wear clothes 
that would make a tasteful American have fits. Amer- 
icans are the best dressed people in the world, and 
American tailors are considered the best everywhere. 

I could live in a hotel cheaper in Europe. The hotel- 
keeper here pays his men from $6 to $10 a month and 
his chambermaids and female help from $1 to $3 a 
month. His meat and groceries cost as much or more 
than they w^ould in America, but he works them more 
economically. The main difference is in the "help." 

In women's wares, silks, embroideries, laces and sew- 




EUROPEAN CLASS "DISTINCTION. 



'Big -fleas have little fleas 

Upon their backs to bite 'em, 

And the little fleas have other fleas, 
And so on, ad infinitum." 



THE TIME TO QUIT. 281 

ing are cheaper in Europe. Cotton goods, shoes and 

ordinary clothes are higher. 

" Things " are just as high in Europe, people and their 

labor are cheaper. 

¥¥¥ 

England is the natural friend and business competi- 
tor of America. There is a marked difference in 
methods and ways. An Englishman will hold fast to 
the old and only accept improvements and changes 
when he is forced to or when he has fully decided they 
are best. In America we usually think a change is a 
good thing, and will prefer something new to the old 
just because it is new, when it may actually not be as 
good. These are differences in temperament which 
have their advantages and disadvantages. We could 
learn from the English and they from us, and a half- 
way compromise would undoubtedly work best. 

The class distinctions are the most unpleasant fea- 
ture of English life. An American friend was telling 
me of an incident which illustrates it. He was visiting 
a wealthy English family, and during his stay had a 
long and pleasant talk with the gardener. He went 
away, and afterward came back for another visit. He 
told his host that he wanted to see the gardener and 
ask about some shrubs. "Very well/' said the host; 
"but you won't mind if I suggest one thing to you. 
Don't call the gardener 'Mr. Johnson.' Just call him 
Johnson.^ We never speak to a servant as 'Mr.'" 
That was not snobbery in England. The host was a 
kind and intelligent Englishman. It is the custom of 



282 A JOURNEY OF A JAYHAWKER. 

the country. The custom goes on down the line. The 
butler would not associate on equal terms with the 
footman or the footman with the porter. And the 
host of my friend would take off his hat to the good- 
for-nothing son of an earl, who in turn would not pre- 
sume to approach a prince unless requested. It re- 
minds me of the poem: 

" Big fleas have little fleas 

Upon their backs to bite 'em, 
And the little fleas have other fleas, 
And so on, ad infinitum." 

It is funny, but it is sickening to an American who 
knows that in his country the son of the gardener may 
be President and the son of the President may be a 
gardener and either of them may be a gentleman if he 
is honest and straight and decent. 

A thought which comes to me very strongly is that 
a little visiting in other countries not only makes a 
man a better American, but it gives him the knowledge 
that there are other bright, smart and able people 
besides those in the United States. The competition 
in this world is keen, and every country has its ad- 
vantages and its disadvantages, its weak points and 
its strong points. There is no profit in belittling the 
other fellow. If I have dwelt most upon the differences 
between America and England, it is because they are 
the interesting things. There is no interest in what 
is the same at home and here. The English are a great 
people. A little country not as big as Kansas really 
dominates the financial and political world. Out of 



THE TIME TO QUIT. 283 

the false notions of medieval times they have built up 
constitutional liberty and have conferred its blessings 
upon others. England is the greatest commercial 
power on earth, and it is so because of Englishmen and 
not because of natural advantages or favored position. 
It is old and interesting, wealthy and powerful. It is 
good to look upon and pleasant to visit. But as for me. 
I am with the Kansan who wrote : 

" I've been off on a journey — just got home to-day. 
I've traveled north, and south, and east, and every other 

way. 
I've seen a heap of country, and cities on the boom, 
But I want to be in Kansas, where the sunflowers bloom." 




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